Ideas Backlog
Anyone on the team submits an idea through the 5D framework, AI expands it into a full product plan, and admins triage a backlog where every idea arrives pre-thought.
From suggestion to decision
Most idea programs die between the suggestion and the evaluation, because evaluating raw ideas is expensive. Here the expansion work happens automatically, so triage is cheap and nothing rots in the inbox.
The team form walks the idea through the first four Ds, from the problem it solves to the return it could produce. Deploy waits until there is something to deploy.
Claude expands the structured idea into a full product plan and files it under one of the four offices. The submitter can edit the plan afterwards.
The idea and its plan arrive in the innovation backlog together, ready to be judged.
Admins review ideas with the plan already attached and set the status: approve it, keep it in review, or decline it.
The submitter sees the status of every idea they submitted on their own ideas page. A declined idea keeps its plan.
How each step works
The submission form is the 5D framework we use for every AI program, one step per D: define the problem, discover the data, design the workflow, and determine the return. Deploy is deliberately skipped, because nobody knows deployment details at the backlog stage. Each step teaches its D and takes voice dictation. A lighter form captures learnings (“what have I learned?”) for the team feed. Structure at the front door means quality in the backlog.
The moment an idea is submitted, Claude expands it into a full product plan: a sharpened problem, the simplest program type that solves it, the workflow, the data it needs, a FAST goal with a real number, a first slice, and open questions. It also files the idea under one of the four offices (revenue, talent, operations, innovation). If generation fails the idea is still safe in the backlog and an admin can retry. The thinking that used to make evaluation expensive now costs nothing.
Idea and plan land in the innovation backlog together. Nothing needs to be chased, formatted, or forwarded before it can be judged.
Every idea moves from new to one of three calls: approved, in review, or declined. An admin can also archive an idea, which hides it from everyone but its submitter. A declined idea keeps its plan, so reviving it later starts from a draft instead of from zero.
The status of every idea is visible to the person who submitted it, on their own ideas page. People keep contributing ideas when they can see the ideas going somewhere, and stop when they vanish into a suggestion box.
Two agents keep the backlog in front of people
Both run as scheduled routines on Settings → Agents, and every run is recorded there. Times are Ho Chi Minh City.
Reads everything submitted to the backlog in the last 24 hours, build ideas and learnings, skipping archived rows. If there is anything, it emails the founder a list with each submitter and takeaway and a link to the backlog, and posts the same summary (first ten items) to the ops Lark channel. An empty day sends nothing, so every message means something.
Reads up to 80 ideas and learnings from the last 60 days and asks Claude for two to four themes that run across multiple items, each a plain sentence with a rough count. The result is stored as a new trends report and the Innovation cockpit renders the newest one. Fewer than three items, no key, or an API error leaves the last report in place rather than overwriting it with nothing.
The seven elements
Every workflow we document has the same anatomy: seven elements, each assigned to a human, a machine, or both. This is the Centaur Map from our workflow design method.
A team member has an idea. The system makes sure having one is never the hard part of sharing one.
The 5D form, first four Ds: the problem, the data involved, the shape of the workflow, and the return. Deployment is left for later.
Approve, keep in review, or decline. Admins decide; the AI plan informs the call but never makes it.
Ideas flow to the backlog with their plan attached, a daily digest carries them to the founder and the ops channel, and statuses flow back to the submitter.
A full product plan per idea, generated the moment the idea is submitted, and a weekly summary of the themes running across recent ideas.
The innovation backlog page, where every idea and plan is reviewable in one place, plus the 08:00 digest by email and Lark.
Ideas submitted, in review, approved and declined, and the trends card on the Innovation cockpit, so the pipeline from suggestion to decision is visible.
The standing rules
- Every idea goes through the first four Ds, no free-form pitches
- Every idea gets a full AI plan before any human evaluates it
- Triage is approve, keep in review, or decline; archive only hides
- Submitters always see the status of their own ideas
- The digest is silent on an empty day; the trends card is never blanked by a failed run
Why it works
- Cheap evaluation means no idea waits months for attention
- The 5D form filters vague wishes into real proposals
- Declined ideas keep their plans, so nothing is ever wasted work
- Visible outcomes keep the idea pipeline full