How can Jira be used for non-agile projects such as infrastructure projects?

[Saskia Cremelie]

We already use Jira for agile projects but use Clarizen for other projects. We are thinking of moving completely to Jira. What is the best way to use Jira for non-agile projects such as infrastructure projects, SAP S4 upgrade projects, etc.?

[andrew_pass · Accepted solution]

Hi Saskia,

It depends on your use case, JIRA can be as flexible as you need it to be to meet the needs of an individual team.

For smaller teams like infrastructure you might want to set them up a Next Gen project first as they're easier to manage at a team level instead of by a central admin, you can then layer in stuff as needed so for example if they use BitBucket you can easily add that functionality in.

I'd suggest talking it thru with the team, get their requirements then go from there, some initial questions - 

• Do they need custom fields? If so what are these and are there any other fields straight out the box that can be used?
• Which issue types do they need? Do they need specific fields linked to different types of change? For example if setting up new AWS infrastructure they might want to capture accounts etc.
• Workflow wise start small and build as needed but I'd suggest starting them with a kanban board initially 

Would also recommend setting up a couple of demo projects for people to play around with :)

Hope that helps!

[Saskia Cremelie]

Hi Andrew,

thank you for your answer. These teams are used to building classic Gantt Charts in Clarizen. Would you recommend they use 'Advanced Roadmaps' to build their Project Plans and then use Epics as a grouping of tasks and Issues as tasks?

I am not familiar with Next Gen projects or BitBucket unfortunately. We are just looking for a simple way to enter project plans with dependencies between tasks, assign tasks and track progress...

Thank you

Saskia

[andrew_pass]

Yeah if you have Jira Premium the Advanced Roadmaps are good, all the projects also come with an easier to manage epic level roadmap as well which is easier to manage but doesn't have the same level of functionality as the advanced ones so depends on what they need really.

If it's just mapping dependencies across different epics then the project ones would prob do :)