When teams start working with Jira Product Discovery, it’s easy to fall into the trap of managing ideas one feature at a time. You capture suggestions, score them, rank them—and before long, you’re swimming in feature requests with no real sense of direction.
That’s where Themes come in.
A Theme is a higher-level concept that ties related ideas together under a shared outcome or opportunity. It might represent a Goal you’re trying to achieve, an Opportunity identified in customer feedback, or a Problem Area you want to explore—like “Improve onboarding experience” or “Increase expansion revenue.” Themes help you focus on outcomes rather than outputs, showing how individual ideas contribute to a bigger strategic direction.
Organizing your ideas around Themes instead of individual features brings structure, focus, and purpose to your product backlog. It turns Jira Product Discovery from a list of “what” into a map of “why.”
Why themes beat features
Themes are the backbone of a strong discovery setup. They help you step back and connect scattered ideas into coherent goals. When you organize ideas around Themes, a few important things happen:
You build toward outcomes, not outputs. Every feature ladders up to a larger outcome or strategic focus, not just a ticket on a board.
You reduce noise. It’s easier to see what really matters when ideas are grouped by the impact they drive.
You align the team around intent. Designers, engineers, and stakeholders all see the bigger picture behind the features they’re building.
You communicate better. Executives don’t need a list of 20 features—they want to know which Themes will move the business forward.
Organizing around Themes turns your idea space into a hierarchy that reflects your strategy. It helps you decide not only what to build, but why it’s worth building.
Step-by-step: how to organize ideas in Jira Product Discovery
Here’s how to structure your Jira Product Discovery project so that Themes guide your roadmap and decision-making.
1. Define your Parent Themes using Idea Types
In Jira Product Discovery, every item is an Idea, but not every idea needs to be a feature. You can use Idea Types to define different levels in your discovery hierarchy — for example:
Theme → broad strategic focus or goal
Opportunity → a specific problem or customer need
Feature → a potential solution or deliverable
Configure the theme idea type
Go to Space settings → Types and workflows.
Create new Idea Types such as Theme and Opportunity.
Give each type its own color, description template, and workflow — for example, Themes might progress from Draft → Validated → Active → Retired.
Add key fields to your Theme type:
Impact (expected business value)
Confidence (how certain you are in the impact)
Owner or Team
Target timeframe (e.g. Now / Next / Later)
This setup gives Themes their own identity, separate from individual features.
Build the hierarchy with Connections
After creating your Idea Types (Theme, Opportunity, Feature), use Connection fields in Jira Product Discovery to link them into a hierarchy. Connections are established by configuring fields that link Ideas of different Types.
Click on Connection settings in the idea item configuration to configure your connections, or refer to this guide for more details.
2. Link Features to Their Parent Themes
Once your Themes are in place, it’s time to connect the dots.
When you create a new feature idea, use the Connections field to link it to its parent Theme.
Group your views by this connection so you can see all ideas organized by Theme in a single glance.
Now you’ll have a clear top-down structure: Theme → Features → Delivery tickets.
3. Add impact and confidence scoring
Impact and Confidence are two of the simplest, most effective ways to prioritize in discovery.
Impact tells you how much an idea could move the needle for its Theme.
Confidence reflects how certain you are that it will actually deliver that impact.
In Jira Product Discovery, add these as custom number fields or select lists. Use them to quickly assess where to focus:
High Impact / High Confidence: Ship these first.
High Impact / Low Confidence: Explore and test before committing.
Low Impact / High Confidence: Safe bets, but low leverage.
This approach brings evidence into prioritization—no more endless debates about what’s “important.”
4. Create views that highlight themes
You can make Jira Product Discovery much easier to navigate by setting up custom views. A few that work particularly well:
Theme Overview – Group by Theme to show each initiative and its child ideas
Impact vs Confidence Matrix – Spot quick wins and risky bets
Roadmap by Theme – Timeline-style view showing progress on major areas of focus
These views help PMs, engineers, and stakeholders see priorities and strategy at a glance.
Common pitfalls to avoid
Too many layers. Start simple: Theme → Feature. Don’t overcomplicate your hierarchy.
Using Themes as tags instead of outcomes. Themes should describe results, not categories.
Ignoring Confidence. Low confidence items are signals for discovery work, not green lights.
Letting Themes go stale. Review and retire Themes regularly so your structure stays relevant.
Going Beyond Jira Product Discovery
Themes and idea hierarchies make Jira Product Discovery a powerful tool for product thinking. But sharing that strategy beyond your team is where many companies struggle.
Released is a Jira add-on that connects directly to your Jira Product Discovery data, keeping Roadmaps and updates automatically in sync. You can share Roadmaps and collect real-time feedback from stakeholders and customers in minutes—without exporting, formatting, or managing multiple copies.
By combining Roadmaps with Feedback, Released helps you organize ideas in Jira, prioritize effectively, and focus on the features and opportunities that drive the most impact. Your team stays aligned, stakeholders stay informed, and every decision is guided by the right data.
