dragonboat Quick Start – dragonboat

dragonboat is a portfolio collaboration platform connecting goals /OKRs, Themes, Initiatives, and Resources with agile execution to create a single source of truth for portfolio planning and execution.

This quick start guide covers how to:

Align Ideas, Automate Visibility, plus Assess Portfolio Scenarios, Forecast Resources

3 steps: Align Initiatives & Gain Visibility

1. Add or Import Ideas in any of the methods below

Copy/Paste from the spreadsheets you're already using to track your roadmaps
Import from a CSV file
Integrate with Jira & Import epics
Add Ideas (epics) in dragonboat on the Ideas Board page
- Click the "+ Add new" on the top of each lane or click the "+ New" button on the top menu.
- You can link this to an existing Jira later, or create a new Jira epic from the Idea pop up.
Add Ideas in dragonboat on the Timeline page
- Click the + icon next to the left-hand section on the title bar, or click the "+ New" button on the top menu.

Tip: check out the field mapping guide to best organize and communicate your roadmaps

2. Group Ideas by various portfolio dimensions

If you prefer the Kanban experience, use the Ideas Board page - it gives you various ways to view and prioritize your ideas
- Select grouping options from the dropdown on the top left.
If you prefer the Spreadsheet experience, use the Ideas List page
- Click the "..." icon to select "Show Fields" to display more or fewer columns
- Make changes in the cell itself or use Bulk updates in the ... menu.
If your prefer the Gantt view experience, use our Timeline page

Tip: your organization may have different terms to organize / categorize initiatives. Change grouping terminology under the global settings icon on the top menu to match your internal vocabulary. So your stakeholders don't need to learn new terms to enjoy your communication.

3. Create and Share Reports/Views from the top menu

Select "Snapshot / Summary" - use the "display preference" on the page to build dynamic "Powerpoint" report
Select Timeline page - drag and drop ideas to create a visual roadmap
- click the Jira icon to view stories
Click the View icon to save or share views

Book a personalized onboarding session

Now you've aligned your products, created a plan, and ready to track or share with your teams and stakeholders. Most teams start enjoying dragonboat from this moment on.

If your organization does quarterly planning or manages resources somewhat centrally, the next 2 steps help you to take advantage of the dragonboat Responsive PPM capabilities.

Add These 2 Steps for Scenario & Resource Planning

1. Add Estimates for quarterly or fuzzy planning (video)

Add Teams and Skills on the Settings page. This tells the available capacity for planning.
Add Estimate in any of these 3 ways
- Open the Idea edit screen, go to the Estimates tab (the ruler icon) on the top right.
- On the Forecast Schedule page select the "+" icon next to each Idea/Epic
- On the F orecast List page, enter estimates directly in the cell, like in a spreadsheet

2. Adjust & Forecast Schedule:

Forecast List allows a quick view of total estimates by Timeframe. You can compare it with the total capacity in the header row, and easily drag Idea from 1 Timeframe to another if the demand is higher than capacity.
On the Forecast Schedule page, the Red or Green on the bottom table indicates whether there is enough resource (as the number of staff) for the planned ideas. Drag ideas to adjust the schedule to level the resourcing needs.

Tip: Confirmed ideas can be "moveable" by going to the page settings icon and scrolling down to select the box that "enables editing Confirmed ideas". This is a default setting so that you don't accidentally adjust anything that might have already been committed/communicated to stakeholders.