Submitting an idea

Every piece of work in Paradym Next can start with an idea from anyone in your organisation. On the Submissions page you describe your idea in your own words, and Next asks a few follow-up questions to shape it into a complete submission. You do not need to fill in a form or know the right format.

After you submit, you can follow your idea as it moves through planning, answer any questions the planning team asks, and see the decision when it is made.

Before you start

• Open Submissions from the sidebar.
• To put forward ideas, your role needs permission to draft them. Without it, you see You don’t have permission to put forward ideas. If you think you should have access, see Understanding roles.
• Have any supporting material to hand, such as screenshots, documents or images.

Understanding the page

The page has a list of your submissions on the left and the conversation on the right. On a phone, the list and the conversation are separate screens.

The list groups your submissions by where they are:

Select any submission to pick up the conversation where you left off.

Describe your idea

1. Select New idea (the + button at the top of the list), or start from the page’s welcome message.

2. In Describe your idea, or the problem you’re hitting…, describe it in your own words.

3. To add supporting files, select the attach button. Next reads images, documents and screenshots alongside your answers.

4. Send your message.

Next asks follow-up questions to fill in what is missing. It works through a short checklist your organisation has set. By default, it covers:

One good message can answer several questions at once. A progress bar above the reply box shows how far along you are, with Filling in the details and then Almost there.

5. Answer each question in Type your answer…. Where Next offers suggested answers as chips, select them to add them to your reply.

Your draft is saved as you go. To give it a clearer name, select the pencil icon beside its title, enter a new name and select Rename.

Check, refine and submit

When Next has what it needs, it writes a summary of your idea and offers these options:

Validate your idea

Select Validate idea to see whether your idea already exists. An Idea Validation card appears in the conversation with:

• a verdict: New idea, Enhancement to an existing product, Duplicate of an existing idea or Already covered by a product
• an explanation, and any matching product, duplicate or related idea
• Still needed: anything that would make the idea clearer
• a confidence score
• Not searched: anything Next could not check, which may explain a low confidence

Validation is optional. You can still submit an idea that looks like a duplicate — the planning team will decide.

Submit

1. Select Submit idea.

   The idea moves from Drafts to In progress, and the conversation becomes a read-only record.

Follow your idea

Open a submitted idea to see where it is. A track at the top shows four stages: Received, Under consideration, In planning and Decision. The record underneath shows when you submitted it and each change of status.

Answer questions from the planning team

If the person triaging your idea asks you something, the idea moves to Needs you in your list, and a Discussion appears in My Tasks.

1. Open the idea. The question is shown at the bottom with who asked it and when.
2. Type your answer in Reply to … and send it.

You can also add more information at any time in Add something to this submission…. For the full discussion view, see Idea discussions.

What happens next

After you submit:

1. Next groups your idea. It appears in the Planning Inbox, where Next groups it into a cluster with other submissions that describe the same thing.
2. The planning team triages it. A triager reviews the cluster and may start a discussion with you to ask for more detail.
3. A decision is made. The cluster may be promoted to the Portfolio for planning, linked to an existing portfolio item, merged with another idea, parked or rejected. Your idea’s status changes to match.

The planning team works with its own set of statuses in the Inbox:

The planning team also labels each idea with an impact type. By default these are Blocking (stopping work), Friction (frustrating but workable) and Enhancement (low priority).

Good to know

• A declined or withdrawn submission is closed. Putting the idea forward again starts a new submission.
• To tidy your list, hover over a submission, select its options menu and choose Archive. This option is only shown if your role allows it.
• Your organisation decides which questions Next asks. See Submissions (Governance).

Related pages

• Idea discussions
• My Tasks
• Inbox
• How work flows through Paradym Next
• Impact types