Planning
Planning
Turn ideas from across your organisation into planned, reviewed portfolio items ready for delivery.
Planning is where an idea becomes a plan. People raise ideas as submissions. Next reads every submission and groups the ones that describe the same need into clusters in the Inbox. Triagers decide what to do with each cluster: set it aside, reject it, or promote it to the Portfolio.
In the Portfolio, each item follows a planning workflow: a series of steps in which Next drafts documents, the item’s owner refines and approves them, and reviewers sign them off. When planning is complete, the owner promotes the item to the delivery Intake Queue, where it becomes a project.
The Planning section of the sidebar has two pages, Inbox and Portfolio.
How this fits the wider flow
Work in Paradym Next moves from an idea, through the Inbox and Portfolio planning, into the Intake Queue, then into Projects and work streams, and finally into Support.
| Stage | Where it happens | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Idea | Submissions | Someone describes a problem or an opportunity. See Submitting an idea. |
| Triage | Planning → Inbox | Next groups similar ideas into clusters. A triager parks, rejects or promotes each cluster. |
| Planning | Planning → Portfolio | The portfolio item moves through its planning workflow: Overview, Requirements, PRD and Review, plus any optional steps your organisation uses. |
| Hand-off | Delivery → Intake Queue | Once every PRD section is approved, the owner promotes the item to the Intake Queue for delivery. |
| Delivery and beyond | Delivery → Projects, Support | The item is set up as a project with work streams, and later supported. |
The planning steps
Each portfolio item follows the planning workflow chosen when it was created. Your organisation sets up its workflows in Governance → Planning → Workflows. Most workflows use these steps:
| Step | What it produces |
|---|---|
| Overview | A short summary of the item, section by section, drafted by Next from the ideas behind it. |
| Requirements | A board of requirements sorted into lanes, such as Must Have and Should Have. |
| PRD | The product requirements document, written section by section, with editors and reviewers for each section. |
| Review | Reviewer feedback and the changes it calls for, which the owner accepts or declines before promoting the item. |
Some workflows also use these optional steps:
| Step | What it does |
|---|---|
| Work stream | A board of tasks that must be finished before planning moves on. |
| Sub-workflow | Splits the work into child items, each with its own owner and workflow. |
| Hand-back | The last step of a child item. It sends the child’s documents and files back to its parent. |
A few terms you will meet
| Term | What it means here |
|---|---|
| Submission or idea | One person’s description of a problem or opportunity. |
| Cluster | A group of submissions that Next believes describe the same thing. |
| Triage | Deciding what happens to a cluster or an idea: park, reject or promote. |
| Impact type | A label for the kind of impact a cluster has, such as Blocking, Friction or Enhancement. |
| Portfolio item | A cluster (or an idea raised directly) that is being planned. |
| Owner | The person who drives a portfolio item through planning. |
| Planning workflow | The steps a portfolio item moves through. |
| Score | A rating out of 100 of how strong the case for an item is, from its scoring model (such as RICE or WSJF). |
| PRD | Product requirements document: the detailed description of what will be built and why. |
| Iteration | A round of planning. Review feedback can start a new round, and changed content is marked. |
Pages in this section
| Page | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Inbox | The queue of clustered ideas, and how to park, reject or promote a cluster. |
| Reviewing an idea | One idea inside a cluster: its versions, cluster fit, discussion with the submitter and possible duplicates. |
| Portfolio | The list of portfolio items, its columns, views and filters, and how to raise a new item directly. |
| Portfolio item | One item’s planning page: the step rail, the score, the action bar and generation settings. |
| Evidence, impact and history | The sources behind a draft, the applications an item touches, version history and the activity log. |
| Parking, withdrawing and promoting | Park, resume, restart or stop an item, withdraw it from review, and promote it to the Intake Queue. |
| Overview step | Generate, edit and approve the item’s overview. |
| Requirements step | Work with the requirements board and its categorisation lanes. |
| PRD step | Write the PRD section by section, with editors, reviewers and AI help. |
| Review step | Assign reviewers, send the PRD out, and accept or decline the changes reviewers ask for. |
| Work stream step | Complete a board of tasks as part of planning. |
| Sub-workflow step | Split an item into child items and wait for them to hand back. |
| Hand-back step | Finish a child item by sending its work to its parent. |
Typical workflow
- Ideas arrive. People submit ideas, and Next groups similar ones into clusters in the Inbox. See Submitting an idea.
- Triage the Inbox. Read Next’s analysis of each cluster, set its impact type, and park, reject or promote it. See Inbox.
- Promote a cluster. Give the new portfolio item a name, an owner, a planning workflow and a scoring model. See Inbox.
- Draft and approve the Overview. Generate it, edit any section, then approve it. See Overview step.
- Shape the requirements. Generate the requirements board, add or move cards, then approve it. See Requirements step.
- Write the PRD. Generate it, assign editors, improve sections with AI, and have each editor mark their sections ready. See PRD step.
- Send it for review. Assign reviewers to every section and send the PRD out. See Review step.
- Reconcile feedback. Accept or decline each change reviewers ask for, and apply your decisions. See Review step.
- Promote to the Intake Queue. Once every section is approved, hand the item to delivery. See Parking, withdrawing and promoting.