December 14, 2023 Press Release

New optional module supports the modern, integrated innovation management process from idea to implementation

Graz, Austria — December 14, 2023. Medium-sized and large organizations often struggle to innovate despite a wealth of great ideas in their employee base. The challenge is that these ideas never reach the decision-makers responsible for driving the creative process. Planforge aims to address this problem with Release 24 of its hybrid project and portfolio management (PPM) software by introducing a new option for integrated innovation management.

Supporting the Modern Idea Management Process

Planforge's new Idea Management Option (IMO) is an additional module designed to support all major steps of the modern innovation management process, including:

• Enabling every employee to easily submit new ideas
• Supporting ideas as distinct, reportable business objects
• Defining a separate set of evaluation criteria for ideas
• Allowing idea management across all portfolio levels
• Providing tabular and graphical analytical capabilities (based on configurable bubble charts).

"Driving continuous and sustainable innovation is a major challenge for many large organizations," says Gerald Aquila, Founder & CEO of Planforge. "Our new Idea Management Option keeps creativity flowing by making it easy for employees to submit new ideas and providing decision-makers with the right tools to select the best ideas."

From Idea to Strategy and Implementation

In Planforge, idea management is deeply interlinked with other capabilities of the PPM platform. For instance, ideas selected for prototyping or implementation can be linked to one or more projects or SAFe Epics. These projects or Epics, in turn, can be linked to key results of strategic objectives (OKRs), ensuring that new features and developments are aligned with the overall organizational strategy.

Although not available from the start, an integration with Jira for idea-collection is already planned for the near future. A logical consequence, as Planforge is well known for its bi-directional Jira integration for project management and SAFe workflows.

Availability

Version 24, including the Idea Management Option (IMO), is now available at www.planforge.io. Planforge is free for up to four users. Larger teams can test the hybrid PPM software in a free trial for 30 days. For more information or to test integrations with Jira or SAP, contact the Planforge sales team at info@planforge.io.