The 8 Best New Features in Aha! in 2020

Tough. This word perfectly captures the essence of 2020 for me. From illness and staggering unemployment, to isolation and not knowing what will come next, it feels like everything was turned upside down. At the same time, I have been inspired by the ways people adapted. I hope that when things do return to "normal" we will be grateful for what we have regained. We decided in early March to keep boldly investing in customers and our team.

Our goal was to give customers more effective ways to set strategy, make progress against plans, and capture customer requests — so you can keep delivering value to your customers.

We introduced a new certification program for people who want to become Aha! Roadmaps experts and enhance their product management skills. More than 250 folks have achieved Aha! certification so far. We also announced a Partner program with industry-leading organizations that are well known for their agile transformation consulting work.

And we launched Aha! Ideas. It is the best way to crowdsource feedback, engage your community, and develop customer empathy. From empathy sessions to in-app community feedback, this new product builds on our idea management capabilities with new ways to connect with and truly understand the heart of the customer.

This summer, we also shared our plans to support social justice organizations and launch a new fellowship program to provide product management training to people from historically underrepresented groups. The inaugural group of fellows graduated in November and we just announced our increased commitment to charitable giving in 2021.

We kept hiring at a steady pace to allow us to create even more value. We shipped hundreds of improvements to Aha! Roadmaps throughout the year. Let's a take a look back at what you have told us were the biggest enhancements from 2020:

New workspaces

At the start of the year, we launched new workspaces — adding IT, project management, services, and business operations to our existing workspaces for product management and marketing. We wanted to give teams of all types a dedicated space in Aha! Roadmaps to set strategy, build visual plans, and prioritize work. With purpose-built workspaces, the entire organization can rally around a shared vision and clear set of business goals.

Beautiful roadmaps

We enhanced two of the roadmap views that you rely on most — the strategy roadmap and the Gantt chart. Both help you communicate how you will make your big plans become a reality. Use the improved strategy roadmap to show how initiatives tie to epics and features. And then coordinate your efforts across teams with the faster and smoother experience of the new Gantt chart.

Interactive dashboards

Aha! reports are a powerful way to show the real impact of your work. And our new dashboards let you bring multiple reports together in a single view — so you can see your product KPIs in one place. We also introduced a redesigned report builder, making it easier than ever to turn your data into beautiful visualizations.

Enhanced idea management

Ideas portals are designed for crowdsourcing feedback. This year, we streamlined the way you create, customize, and brand portals. We also introduced a more modern look and feel for the portal itself. And of course we delivered new functionality with the launch of Aha! Ideas. Aha! Roadmaps customers can upgrade to benefit from the new functionality in the Ideas Advanced plan — including portal translation, empathy sessions, and in-app community feedback.