JIRA setup for managing a project- best practices

[Eunice Lin]

Our company has multiple engineering teams (squads).  Each team includes frontend developers, backend developers and QAs.  They work on the tasks for multiple projects in each sprint.   Since they practice scrum methodology and want to build each team's velocity and use it for planning, they have created a JIRA Project for each team and a board in each team's project to manage their work.   Is this the best practice in using JIRA to plan, manage, and track the work for projects? 

With this setup, when the team works on multiple projects at the same time and multiple teams work on a project, and the product manager or/and the project manager for each project want to have the visibility of the overall project in one place, they would create a separate JIRA project to store all the epic tickets for the project, and then link the stories from each team to the relevant epics.   For instance, Project X is worked on by Team A, Team B, and Team C.  Team A, Team B, and Team C manage their work for this project in their own/respective JIRA projects and board so that they can include the stories/tasks/defects of Project X in their scrum grooming, sprint planning, and sprints.  The backlogs related to Project X is prioritized against other projects that Team A (project Y), Team B (project Z), and Team C (project O) also are working on.   What is the best practice of using JIRA to manage a project in this organization structure? 

[Alexander Bondarev · Accepted solution]

Hi, @Eunice Lin ! 

This is a very interesting and difficult question!

Its complexity lies in the fact that there is no single approach to the organization of work. Every organization is unique, and the teams within it can also vary greatly, this is what makes the task interesting

In our company, we also face such a task (we have a Server, not Cloud) and use 2 apps(plugins) for this:

1. Structure - Project Management at Scale- Structure Cloud enables project managers that work with Atlassian Cloud to more easily visualize, track and manage progress across Jira projects and teams. It does this with adaptable, user-defined issue hierarchies presented in a familiar spreadsheet-like view of Jira issues.

2. Advanced Roadmaps (formerly Portfolio) (available on Cloud as part of Jira Software Premium)- Advanced Roadmaps for Jira helps you build a plan, see the big picture, track progress, and easily share with stakeholders.

Each app has excellent documentation with examples.

Thus, you can try both apps in a trial version and choose exactly the solution that will solve exactly your problem.

[Eunice Lin]

Much appreciate your quick response, Alexander.  We did use JIRA Portfolio.  I will check out Structure.  Thanks again!

[Dave Rosenlund _Trundl_ · Accepted solution]

Hi, @Eunice Lin.  I agree with @Alexander Bondarev (although it is somewhat gratuitous for me to say so because I work for the company that makes Structure).

The "best practice" is to find/use the right set of products in your Atlassian stack to best suit your needs -- there is no one size fits all.  Or, you may choose to change your company's project management practices to conform to a new way of doing things.  

In other words, you can adapt to the tooling OR choose tooling that adapts to the way you want to do things.  

Structure was specifically designed for those who want tooling that enables them to do things the way they want to do them. It does not prescribe a specific way of doing things.

Advanced Roadmaps help companies conform to a particular way of doing things. It's prescriptive.

But both tools can help you plan and visualize your Jira portfolio (across teams and projects) — but they approach the problem in very different ways. 

If you decide to have a look at Structure, our support team will gladly help you with any questions you may have (support@almworks.com). 

Best of luck to you,

-dave [ALM Works]

[Eunice Lin]

Thank you, Dave!  What you said makes a lot of sense.  I will definitely check out Structure and reach out to your Support for any questions.  

[Jeanne Higgins]

I have tried WBS Gantt, but I need to actually see a predecessor column which makes it faster to link my tasks versus trying to use the GUI WBS Gantt to do this which is tedious when have many projects that vary from project to project.  Does Structure have this and is it like MS Project ?

[Dave Rosenlund _Trundl_]

Hi, @Jeanne Higgins. First, Structure is def. not like MS Project. What I mean by that is, MS Project is broad and deep but with a very prescriptive way of doing things.  Some would say, it's overly complex (you might not).

Structure is more like Excel -- it's a blank canvas where you may assemble Jira issues, across projects and teams, as you wish. 

You can set up any hierarchy of issues you'd like.  Group things as you wish - by project, by assignee, by component, by sprint, etc. And you can automatically or manually add things to a "structure" as you wish.

Some people like that flexibility, some do not. We are optimized around "do things as you wish." 

As for the "predecessor column," I'm afraid I'd not 100% sure what you mean...  But, I suspect you are talking about finish-to-start dependencies. We have those in Structure.Gantt (and an optional extension to Structure).

If you want to see those as a separate column in the WBS, we can probably do that too, through our Effectors feature.  I'm just guessing though -- we'd have to know a bit more.  

What I know for sure is, our support team will be very happy to chat with you about your use case, and how we can (or can't) handle it.  

I hope this helps,

-dave [ALM Works]

[Jeanne Higgins]

I am looking for a Project Management Tool that works with Jira Cloud.  Structure right now is in the midst of moving some of the functionality to the cloud and currently does not have all the functionality I need to manage project much like I would using Project Plans in Microsoft Project and Smartsheet.  Is there a tool that would fit the bill?  WBS Gantt is close, but lacks the ability to add in a comment or text field to put in weekly Project tasks status as well as no predecessor column to show which Items are linked and allows to even put in the link in there versus click and drag tasks on Gantt GUI to do this which can get tedious if you are managing more than 6 projects at once.