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262 VOTE
Status Will not implement
Categories Strategy
Created by Guest
Created on Mar 20, 2015

Add Features to multiple initiatives

Many intiatives may benefit from some common functionality.   If you could add a feature to multiple initiatives it would allow you to better track the impact of the feature across the entire business.

  • ADMIN RESPONSE
    Jul 22, 2022

    We appreciate the feedback on this idea. Despite the interest in this request, we do not plan to implement this idea.

    That said, please note that there are a couple workarounds which would allow you to link a feature to multiple initiatives and understand the impact of the features across the business.

    1. Add an initiatives record relationship custom field to capture secondary initiatives for a feature

    2. Use record links to connect the feature to secondary initiatives

    While we can see value in particular cases for directly linking a feature to multiple initiatives, allowing this would cause other issues and limitations that may not be apparent on the surface. Since initiatives typically represent a large body of work, it is important as that work is broken down into features to be able to clearly delineate which features contribute to the work of the initiative.

    For example, we have a major effort underway to provide enhanced capacity planning capabilities which will allow you to manage estimates and capacity at the initiative level for high level planning (which can be tracked in this idea.) This would not be possible if a feature could be related to more than one initiative.

    Implementing this would also limit future improvements to roadmap visualizations where you may want to see your initiatives and features in a single roadmap.

    Given the available workarounds and limitations of introducing this capability, we hope you can understand why we do not have plans to implement this idea.

  • Attach files
  • Gary Goz
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    Aug 14, 2023

    I'm using the work around, but it is not ideal. The whole point of this request is to allow a feature (or epic) to support multiple initiatives in the business. Dependencies and links are not well supported in roadmap views which is the whole purpose of how we use this tool.

  • Guest
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    Jul 10, 2023

    This is a real problem in that we have so many features that support multiple initiatives and have no effective way to show or track this... The reasons given for not doing this is not holding water...

  • Guest
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    Jun 9, 2023

    So how does one do an initiative roadmap then? I was hoping to be able to see how a given initiative laid out on the roadmap, but if the features are not there, then this would not work, right? Is there a word around or solution for that?

  • Max Kanter
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    Aug 31, 2022

    I still want this, we've been struggling because you can't do this. I agree with Scott Shultz. It's common to have this kind of relationship and we're forced to work around Aha! because of this limitation. The "limitations that may not be apparent on the surface" is a cop out.. it seems practical for the very reason given. One feature does contribute to multiple initiatives, the knowledge that one piece of work and effort to build a feature would benefit multiple initiatives is fantastic and it's a reason to prioritize the delivery of that feature.

    Likewise, the "issue" of visualizing all your initiatives and features in a single roadmap is imminently solvable and beneficial. Show it twice, put an asterisk on each one with a mouse-over and don't double-count the effort in a roll-up. The ability to show the reuse of one feature to deliver on multiple initiatives would be a huge win.


  • Peter Bongiorno
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    Jan 27, 2022

    I agree with several of the comments as to the need to link an a Capability / Feature to multiple Initiatives. What is needed is an "Initiatives" field (plural) that works exactly like the Goals field works where you can select multiple goals and the "Belongs To" relationship is automatically established.

    Business driver for this is that you need the "Belongs To" relationship so you can then use List and Pivot reports (for example to define a roadmap view that then leverages groupings by Initiative) and also provides far more format and output control. If you manually set the relationship using record links, you are limited to a Dependency report and the Dependency report does not offer the flexibility you have with a List / Pivot report.

  • KATIE STARLING
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    Sep 20, 2021

    I understand this decision. My current workaround is to list relationships between initiatives and choosing a "primary" initiative wherein I list the related capabilities. It seems like there's potential to have the same features/capabilities appear multiple times in given roadmap or to include some kind of toggle based feature where you could change the views so that multiple initiatives pointing to the same feature or capability could be viewed. I'll be interested to see how this evolves.

  • Guest
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    Aug 14, 2020

    It irritates me that a feature can be linked to multiple goals, but not to multiple initiatives. I get the Admin Response above, but with this background you should simply remove the link to goals, as features will be automatically linked to goals via the initiative they relate to. The initiative already relates to multiple goals!

  • Scott Shultz
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    Feb 4, 2020

    It is very limiting for a feature or master feature to link to only one initiative. In the real world it is very normal for features to be linked to multiple initiatives, as evidenced by the number of comments in this thread. Adding an additional custom field doesn't solve the problem. Please fix this limitation. 

  • Josh Tambor
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    Jan 15, 2020

    Following on this thread...it would be helpful to get some additional beyond the above Admin response. I will say that adding a custom field is a good work around, however, it may become a large burden for an admin to manage a large amount of fields in time. With respect to the link feature, I do not think this a strong feature in its current state. It is a bit limiting in respect to how it is viewed. Given that the response was issued in Q4 2018, and that Aha has made some strategic choices around its position as an end-to-end management tool for strategy and requirements (i.e. inclusion of new workspace types), any additional guidance from the team is greatly appreciated

  • Guest
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    Aug 26, 2019

    The problem is about reporting, this could still be solved without breaking the future development.

    What about including the "record links" concept in the reporting structure, so that we can pull related object data using the record links instead (or in addition to) the object hardcoded links?

  • Guest
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    Aug 26, 2019

    The problem is to report a feature against multiple large initiatives.

    This idea refers one solution for this problem, which is to link a feature to multiple initiatives through the feature->initiative attribute. Understanding that this would break your solution, could you still provide a solution to the original problem "out of the box" / without requiring use of custom fields?

    What about including the "record links" concept into your reporting solution?

  • Yogev Barom
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    Feb 20, 2019

    Thank you

  • Zachary Levin
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    Dec 18, 2018

    This feature would really help us deal with a strategy aiming to integrate disparate product lines through multiple initiatives and consequently have major benefits to our prioritization system - identifying features tied to multiple key strategic initiatives

  • Ben Hampton
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    Dec 12, 2018

    Thanks for the explanation!  Knowing this won't be implemented helps clarify how we should be best representing the initiative object.

  • Guest
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    Dec 12, 2018

    In retrospect, only a madman would want this feature. 😀

    (But you were very kind in your explanation)

  • Johan Criel
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    Nov 20, 2018

    Idea++.

    Any feedback from Aha! side regarding this topic?

  • K W
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    Oct 11, 2018

    We're a Fortune 100 and love using Aha. This feature is important to us; any progress on this?

  • Guest
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    Oct 3, 2018

    Please let us know when this will be available or not; either way we need to know. It will impact our use of the Aha! tool moving forward

  • Zach Robin
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    Oct 2, 2018

    Lack of this feature is limiting further expansion of Aha! within our global organization. 

     

  • Jerrold Emery
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    Sep 5, 2018

    Are there any updates on this request? It certainly has a lot of votes and plenty of comments. It would be nice to see this item move forward.

  • Load older comments
  • +164
31 MERGED

Allow Features to be mapped to multiple initiatives

Merged
We have features that map to multiple initiatives with equal relevance and importance. We then roadmaps for our initiatives to see all of relevant activities and to understand dependencies and relationships. Since we are limited to be able to on...
Guest about 6 years ago in Features 0 Will not implement
30 MERGED

Ability to attach more than 1 initiative to an EPIC and to also be able to incorporate that within a CSV import

Merged
Often I have more than 1 initiative associated with a master feature. Currently I can only associate one. I also know how time consuming it is to review ideas as our ideas portal is quite lively - so why not stop right now and make yourself a cup ...
Guest about 6 years ago in Epic 0 Will not implement
52 MERGED

Link a feature to more than one initiative

Merged
Some of our features serve multiple initiatives. Would like the ability to link a feature to more than one initiative - like can do with a release.
Guest over 8 years ago in Strategy 0 Will not implement
45 MERGED

Features should be allowed to have more than one initiative.

Merged
Goals can have multiple Initiatives. Releases can have multiple Goals and Initiatives. Features can have multiple Goals but only one Initiative (?). This could be an oversite by the Aha developers.
Guest over 7 years ago in Features 0 Will not implement
12 MERGED

Allow Features to Link to More than one Initiative or Goal

Merged
Creating a one to many relationship between Features and Initiatives would help with prioritization. The features that support multiple strategic imperatives should be of higher value.
Guest over 4 years ago in Features 0 Will not implement