Frequently Asked Questions

Find answers to common questions about Ibis Flow

General Questions

What is Ibis Flow?
Ibis Flow is a decision system for software teams that connects to your backlog. It combines AI-assisted backlog refinement, collaborative estimation, and live prioritisation workflows so teams can improve ticket quality, expose trade-offs, and make better delivery decisions before work starts.
What is Ibis Flow not?

Ibis Flow is not a project management tool. It does not replace your backlog tool, and it does not attempt to manage sprints, track time, or provide resource allocation.

Your existing system of record stays exactly that. Ibis Flow connects to it to provide decision structure around estimation, prioritisation, and planning — without replacing your existing tools or adding process overhead.

Who is Ibis Flow designed for?

Engineering managers, product leaders, and delivery teams who need to make reliable commitments under uncertainty.

Organisations where missed delivery commitments have real consequences - whether for customer trust, revenue, or strategic planning.

Teams already using Jira or Azure DevOps who want better structure for estimation decisions without migrating to a different system.

Do I need to install a mobile app?
No. Ibis Flow is a web application designed to work on both desktop and mobile devices. The interface adapts to your screen size automatically. Estimation sessions, voting, and all other functionality are accessible through your browser.

Product Scope & Roadmap

What functionality is available today?

Collaborative estimation, live prioritisation workflows, and the AI Ticket Assistant are available today. This includes backlog-connected estimation sessions, stakeholder prioritisation input, decision publishing, and AI-assisted backlog refinement.

Teams can improve rough backlog items with AI, run estimation sessions with hidden voting and consensus tracking, and publish prioritisation decisions with a clear record of trade-offs while your backlog remains the source of truth.

What is currently in development?
Two areas are actively in development. First, WSJF (Weighted Shortest Job First) scoring is being added to the prioritisation module, giving teams a structured, data-driven technique for ranking work by value and urgency. Second, Ticket Prep is extending Discovery’s Ticket Craft workflow so that refined ticket drafts can be released to team members for collaborative preparation before estimation.
What is planned for the future?
Team planning is the next major layer. This includes capacity coordination, sprint planning, and historical trend analysis that connect prioritisation decisions and delivery commitments across time horizons and teams. No release dates are currently published.
Why does Ibis Flow expand gradually rather than shipping everything at once?

Estimation, prioritisation, and planning are interconnected decisions. Building them correctly requires each layer to be stable before the next is added.

Shipping incomplete or disconnected features would undermine the core value proposition - improving decision quality. Deliberate expansion ensures that each capability genuinely improves team outcomes rather than adding complexity.

Will prioritisation and planning features be added to existing plans?
Prioritisation is already included in the Multi-Team and Organisation plans. The Team plan focuses on AI-assisted backlog refinement and collaborative estimation, with an upgrade path when stakeholder prioritisation or broader coordination becomes relevant.

Estimation Sessions

How do estimation sessions work?

A session facilitator creates an estimation session and imports tickets from your backlog. Participants are invited via email.

For each ticket, participants vote independently. Once votes are collected, results are revealed simultaneously to prevent anchoring bias. The facilitator then guides discussion toward consensus and records the final estimate.

Who can facilitate an estimation session?
Any team member with appropriate permissions can create and facilitate sessions. The facilitator controls session flow - starting voting rounds, revealing results, initiating re-votes when needed, and accepting final estimates. Facilitators can also participate in voting if desired.
How do participants join estimation sessions?
All participants authenticate through their organisation identity provider (such as Microsoft Entra or Google Workspace). This ensures session integrity and maintains enterprise security standards. Participants receive an invitation and sign in using their existing work credentials.
How does Ibis Flow help teams reach consensus?

When votes diverge significantly, the system surfaces this for discussion rather than averaging the difference. Outliers are highlighted to ensure concerns are addressed before finalising estimates.

Participants can add reactions to tickets - flagging risks, dependencies, scope concerns, or questions. These annotations create shared context and surface assumptions that might otherwise remain hidden.

What happens when estimates differ significantly?
Divergent estimates indicate misalignment - someone understands the work differently. Rather than forcing a number, Ibis Flow encourages discussion. The facilitator can initiate a re-vote after the team has talked through differences. Consensus built through discussion is more reliable than averaged numbers.
Are estimation decisions preserved?
Yes. Session history captures who participated, how votes evolved, and what decisions were made. This creates an audit trail for retrospectives and helps teams learn from past estimates over time.
How does estimation connect to Jira?

Tickets are imported from Jira with their current details — title, description, acceptance criteria, and priority. After estimation, the agreed value can be written back to Jira.

Jira remains the source of truth. Ibis Flow provides the decision structure; Jira stores the results.

How does estimation connect to Azure DevOps?

Work items are imported from Azure DevOps with their current details — title, description, acceptance criteria, and priority. After estimation, the agreed value can be written back to Azure DevOps.

Azure DevOps remains the source of truth. Ibis Flow provides the decision structure; Azure DevOps stores the results.

Prioritisation & Ticket Assistant

How do prioritisation workflows work?

A host creates a prioritisation workflow from backlog filters, backlog boards, CSV imports, manual entry, or previous estimation outputs. Stakeholders are then invited to contribute structured input asynchronously.

Ibis Flow aggregates the evidence, shows how rankings shift, supports review and banding decisions, and lets the host publish the final prioritisation outcome with rationale.

Who participates in prioritisation?
Hosts control the workflow, while invited stakeholders contribute via simple scoring inputs and optional questions or comments. The review and publication step remains with the host so the final decision stays accountable.
What does the AI Ticket Assistant do?
The AI Ticket Assistant helps improve rough backlog items before refinement and estimation. It can turn a light ticket into a stronger draft, surface quality gaps, and suggest clarifications so teams start discussions with better inputs rather than incomplete tickets.
Can prioritisation decisions be published back to stakeholders?
Yes. After review, the host can publish the final prioritisation decision so stakeholders can see the outcome and rationale instead of relying on disconnected follow-up messages or meetings.

Plans & Pricing

How are the plans structured?

Plans reflect delivery maturity rather than arbitrary feature bundles. Team suits individual teams improving backlog quality and estimation. Multi-Team suits organisations coordinating prioritisation across multiple teams. Organisation suits enterprises where planning visibility and governance are strategically important.

Each tier includes the capabilities appropriate to that maturity stage, with prioritisation already live in Multi-Team and Organisation, and broader planning capability expanding over time.

What does the Team plan include?
The Team plan provides collaborative estimation sessions, backlog integration, session history, and email-based participation. It is designed for teams that want to improve estimation quality and build alignment without requiring advanced coordination features.
What additional capabilities do Multi-Team and Organisation plans provide?

Multi-Team and Organisation add live prioritisation workflows, stakeholder input, and broader coordination visibility on top of the Team plan’s AI-assisted backlog refinement and collaborative estimation.

Organisation adds the widest planning visibility, governance support, and stronger coordination capability as the product roadmap expands.

Can I change plans later?
Yes. You can upgrade or downgrade at any time through your account settings. Changes take effect immediately. Upgrades are prorated; downgrades receive credit toward future billing.
Is there a trial period?
Yes. All plans include a 14-day free trial with full access to available functionality. No credit card is required to start the trial.

Organisations & Teams

How are organisations and teams structured?
An organisation is the top-level account that holds your subscription and team memberships. Teams within an organisation can have their own estimation sessions and settings while sharing the organisation subscription.
Someone in my organisation already has an Ibis Flow subscription. How do I join?

Contact your organisation administrator and request an invitation. They can add you through the organisation settings.

If you cannot identify the administrator, contact support and we can help locate the right person. Creating a separate organisation is possible but will result in duplicate subscriptions and isolated data.

How do team members collaborate?
Team members within an organisation can participate in shared estimation sessions, view session history, and contribute to discussions. Access is managed at the organisation and team level by administrators.
Can I have multiple teams within one organisation?
Yes. Organisations can have multiple teams, each with their own estimation sessions and participants. This is particularly useful for organisations coordinating delivery across several product or feature teams.

Security, Privacy & Trust

Where is data stored?
Ibis Flow is hosted on secure cloud infrastructure with data residency in regions appropriate for enterprise customers. For specific data residency requirements, contact support to discuss options.
How is authentication handled?
All users authenticate through their organisation identity provider, such as Microsoft Entra or Google Workspace. There is no guest or email-only access. This ensures that every participant is verified through your existing identity infrastructure, maintaining enterprise security standards.
Is my Jira data secure?

Ibis Flow connects to Jira using OAuth with minimal required permissions. Only ticket metadata needed for your workflows is accessed — not your entire Jira instance.

Jira remains your system of record. Ibis Flow retains the ticket metadata necessary to power platform analysis, AI insights, and historical context across your workflows. All data is encrypted at rest and in transit.

Is my Azure DevOps data secure?

Ibis Flow connects to Azure DevOps using OAuth with minimal required permissions. Only work item metadata needed for your workflows is accessed — not your entire Azure DevOps organisation.

Azure DevOps remains your system of record. Ibis Flow retains the work item metadata necessary to power platform analysis, AI insights, and historical context across your workflows. All data is encrypted at rest and in transit.

Do you have security certifications?
For detailed security documentation, compliance certifications, or to complete a security questionnaire, contact support. We work with enterprise procurement and security teams regularly and can provide appropriate documentation for your review process.
What is your approach to data privacy?
We collect only the data necessary to provide the service. We do not sell user data or use it for purposes beyond service delivery and improvement. For detailed privacy information, refer to our privacy policy or contact support with specific questions.

Still need help?

Our support team is happy to assist you.

Contact Support