Combine mulitple projects into one umbrella project

[Kelly Koolen]

Hi,

I'll first provide some background information. We're working with different projects, as we call it domains. this domains are part of several initiatives. We now want to combine (some of) these projects/domains which will be visible in one initiative project. 

For example, our domains: 

• CRM
• MDM
• Ecommerce

Our initiatives:

• Digital Twin 
• VIC 

As we want to view the project progress on initiative level, we need to combine the domains into one projectview on initiative level: 

• Digital Twin, we need to see the CRM and MDM domains
• VIC, we need to see the CRM, MDM and Ecommerce domains

So, we don't need to see all domains in each initiative, but we do want to measure cross-domain the progress of an initiative. 

What is a best practice to do so? Working with Epics, Labels? How to install the boards with which filters? 

Hopefully you can help me further on this. Thanks!

[Jack Brickey]

I may be missing the mark with your goals but it would seem to me that creating either/both a Dashboard/Kanban board would meet your needs. If you are simply wanting to see the activities of these various projects in one page then that should work.

[Kelly Koolen]

Hi Jack, 

A dashboard is not solving our problem, or our needs. Maybe a Kanban board will, but my question to you is then: how should we set this up? The goal that our initiatives can be managable cross domains. Could you explain more about how to set up a kanban board in which we can relate User Stories to? 

Thanks!

[Yuri Lapin _Release Management_]

Hi @Kelly Koolen

Hope this message finds you well.

Have nearly the same setup. We have the following structure:

• Technical Tasks and Stories gets into Epics
• We try not make Epics per project/domain though sometimes our Product Managers tends to go this way. We tend to create Epics as incremental deliverables in scope of initiative. Thus Epic could accommodate tasks and stories from multiple projects aimed to end to end delivery (we use Classic Projects, won't work in NextGen). For the host of the Epic we pick up the project with most of work or who is the last in value chain.
• We also use an umbrella project for issue type called Initiative linked to the Epics above with "is implemented by"

This allows us to track it on different levels and build deferent boards.

We recently started to use structure App to visualize Initiatives>Epics>Tasks/Story tree with some incorporated features for Resource Management and Planning.

If you are up to the Apps from the Marketplace I would also suggest looking into Release Management App. This App is built exactly for your use case.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Yuri.

[Dave Rosenlund _Trundl_]

Hi, @Kelly Koolen

There are a number of Jira apps available in the Atlassian Marketplace that add PPM capabilities across Jira projects ("domains" in your case).  @Anna-BigPicture 's product, Big Picture, is one of the popular ones -- but there are others, too.

I suggest you use the following search on the Atlassian Marketplace to find what you're looking for:  

https://marketplace.atlassian.com/search?hosting=cloud&query=cross%20project

Only you can judge which product may best meet your needs. Pick a handful to look at more deeply.  

Good luck!

-dave [ALM Works]

P.S.  Full disclosure, my company also makes one of them -- Structure for Jira

[Aiden Marriott]

Hi Kelly.  Have you looked at Project Categories?  This is an easy way to group projects together and you can filter based on them to get your combined view?

Using Epics is another possibility as these are cross-project by default

You may also want to consider looking at the marketplace for BigPicture or Advanced Roadmaps if you are working with initiaives that sit above epics in a hierachy 

[Kelly Koolen]

Hi Aiden,

Project Categories we already do work with, but it's unfortunately not what we're looking for.

We probably should use epics and/or labels to combine these projects. We're not there yet to use BigPicture, problably we will in the future. Before, we need to manage our projects and initiatives first. 

[Anna-BigPicture]

Hi @Kelly Koolen

Let me add a few words about BigPicture. Regardless of project setup in Jira, with BigPicture, you will be able to manage them flexibly. 

For example, if you decide to have one Jira project per Initiative and domain, you can create boxes in BigPicture (boxes are the equivalent of a project) with a scope created on the basis of a Jira projects mix. BigPicture allows users to create a defined collection of tasks based on a combination of multiple Jira projects, boards, or filters and display them all on the roadmap. 

Thanks to this, you will get the cross-section, big picture view that you are interested in.

The additional great bonus is the structure visualization & management, which cannot be obtained in Jira itself.

If you would like to know more, please join one of our free webinars to speak about BigPicture possibilities more.