<!-- triage-serverless v3 PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE THIS SECTION --> *This page may contain information related to upcoming products, features and functionality. It is important to note that the information presented is for informational purposes only, so please do not rely on the information for purchasing or planning purposes. Just like with all projects, the items mentioned on the page are subject to change or delay, and the development, release, and timing of any products, features, or functionality remain at the sole discretion of GitLab Inc.* <!-- triage-serverless v3 PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE THIS SECTION --> ### Exec Summary We are proposing new features related to epics and roadmaps in the starter and premium tier that will solve some of the problems managers and directors (the likely buyers of those tiers) have with portfolio and project management. The existing epic and roadmap features will not move tiers, and will remain in ultimate. [Validation Canvas](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GllufoLzfGmS3VlAghMLpUmLQSqaQNhMRUX0s7G-BX4/edit?usp=sharing) [Top Customer Conversations Summary](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17i9wGJTuQ4fyNBY7AbAbnwoQATOHXw1mxDJBqOXrSEE/edit?usp=sharing) **Summarized Proposal** | Package | Epic Availability | Roadmap Availability | | ------ | ------ | ----- | | ~"GitLab Core" | None | None | | ~"GitLab Starter" | Project level Epics - No Nesting | Project level Roadmap | | ~"GitLab Premium" | Group level Epics - Can nest a single level of Project level Epics | Group level Roadmap | | ~"GitLab Ultimate" | Group level Epics - Can nest multiple levels of sub-epics | Multi-Group level Roadmap | ### Additional Context Currently, all epic and roadmap functionality inside of GitLab is in the Ultimate tier. Per our [pricing tier](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/ceo/pricing/) guidance, Ultimate is targeted to the executive, but many other likely buyers, such as [engineering managers](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/marketing/product-marketing/roles-personas/#delaney-development-team-lead) and [directors](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/marketing/product-marketing/enterprise-it-roles/#who-cares-about-what-what-pains-do-they-have), likely require epics to efficiently manage their teams and break down their work. A strong argument can be made that epic functionality should be made available at the starter and premium tiers, based on the likely buyers of these tiers. Epics are a core construct of Portfolio and Project Management and we should to tailor the epic and roadmap functionality to better suit each type of buyer. Additionally, [GitLab encourages user to adopt Agile principles](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2018/03/05/gitlab-for-agile-software-development/) to iterate and build better software, yet we lock an essential tool in that process in a tier that is targeted toward executives. ### Proposal #### Project Level Epics & Roadmap ~"GitLab Starter" - Projects would get project level epics. - Project level epics could only be accessed from within a project and can only contain issues within that project. - Project epics cannot be multilevel. - Projects would get a basic roadmap to view epics within that project only. - As the roadmap becomes more feature rich, there will naturally be some capabilities that will not fall within this pricing tier. (i.e. dependency modeling, advanced reporting, etc.) > When I'm conducting roadmap planning and backlog grooming, I want to group issues within a project into similar buckets, so that I can easily track longer term features. #### Single Level Group Epics & Roadmap ~"GitLab Premium" - Within this tier, group level epics cannot include other group level epics (no nesting of epics at the group level). - Epics can only include single tier Project epics and project issues - Project level epics can only belong to one single group level epic. - Groups would get a basic roadmap to view epics within that group only. - As the Roadmap becomes more feature rich, there will naturally be some capabilities that will not fall within this pricing tier. (i.e. dependency modeling, advanced reporting, etc.) > When I'm trying to coordinate strategy across many project teams, I want to see project level initiatives grouped together and viewable on some sort of timeline, so that I can track progress and understand what is coming up and what is currently in flight. #### Multi level Group Epics & Roadmaps ~"GitLab Ultimate" - Basically what it is now. - As the Roadmap becomes more feature rich, all capabilities will be available to this tier. > When I'm trying to understand product development across the Company, I want to create multi-level constructs that reflects more complex dependencies across departments, so that I can ensure we are staying on track and coordinating effectively. ### Current Workarounds We see users leveraging two workarounds to gain similar functionality within GitLab: **Heavy Labeling :** Users add 3 - 5 labels to denote the Issue is “High Level Issue”, “Epic”, “Planning Issue” etc and customize their issue board to reflect it moving across their development process. **Milestone as Epic :** Users add all Issues that relate to a similar theme to a Milestone and use it as a substitute for an Epic. ### Intended users #### Managers ~"GitLab Starter" Managers definitely care about prioritization, planning, and maintaining some sort of roadmap. They likely will need to track their team's progress on some sort of timeline (roadmap), as well as provide a way to group issues on a given project into buckets of work (epic). #### Directors ~"GitLab Premium" Directors coordinate projects/products across many different teams and would pay for the ability to roll up project level epics on the group level. #### Executives ~"GitLab Ultimate" Executives need a high level few of all the different initiatives in flight within their organization. They will most certainly pay for advanced reporting, the ability to easily surface problem areas across a company level roadmap, visualize dependencies across groups, etc. ### Market Details Several competitors, such as [Jira ($7)](https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/pricing) and [Pivotal Tracker](https://www.pivotaltracker.com/help/articles/pricing/) ($15), offer Epics to this type of Buyer at a lower price point. #### User Feedback > That massive premium bothers me too. I don't mind paying for those premium features, but as a small company (less than 20 employees) the cost is not justifiable. We already use GitLab's community edition as a self-hosted package combined with MatterMost, and we love it. We are not using its issue tracker, only the git repository hosting and integration with MatterMost. However, having to go to enterprise tier just to get epics is not an option for us. I really wish GitLab would price their tiers more appropriately for small businesses. [Hacker News Comment](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20807787) > But the cost would be an issue for us: Bronze $4/user/month is ok, but $19/user/month is prohibitive for us. https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/issues/7781 > As a purchaser who currently uses Jira and was considering using Gitlab, I can't believe something basic as Epics are being made an "Ultimate" feature. It's simply a logical group of issues and should be in CE. Portfolio management should be an enterprise or ultimate feature, but epics? Geez. https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/issues/3254#note_47819284 > “I'd like to use GitLab alone, focus on business logic I've to code and keep an agile board that my team and I can use. And here comes GitLab - with a price of $99 per user. It'd cost us $25,000 a month. Just to get an agile board. So what we did was - we said "screw that, they completely missed the point", I started playing with Gogs and I decided we can develop a tiny agile board within a few days to suit our needs, integrate it with gogs and ditch GitLab.” [Response to top Hacker News comment for 12.5 Release](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21605145) ### What does success look like, and how can we measure that? * Increase in upgrades to Starter and Premium * Overall # of Epic created at Project and Group level * Increase in views of Roadmap pages