(Asking for opinions) Usefulness of a catch-all project

[Soporte Atl]

Hi,

• I'm thinking of creating a Jira project for all the people in a department for them to be able to open and auto-assign any task they want and keep track of their work.
• This Jira project wouldn't be associated with a specific client or actual project.

But I'm not sure if this approach is useful or will end up being a complete mess.

I would be very interested in reading your opinions on the subject.

Thank you in advance.

Best regards,

M

[Julie d_Antin _Elements_]

Hi @Soporte Atl 

My first reaction is that Trello would be a better tool for individuals looking for flexibility to keep track of their own work.

But off the top of my head, here are a couple questions that come to mind:

• would a generic workflow work for everyone?
• will everyone use the same fields? or if someone doesn't need a field, are they bothered/confused by having fields to ignore?
• are you looking for this as a way for people to share what they're working on with colleagues? or is just for people to prioritize their tasks?

If everyone is okay with a generic set up and looking to provide visibility to colleagues about what they're working on, this could be a good solution.

If some people have different processes or specific needs, it will quickly be difficult to meet everyone's needs. Or you will have a lot of admin work to do (maintaining lots of issue types, screens, workflows, etc).

[Soporte Atl]

Hi, @Julie d_Antin _Elements_ 

Thanks so much for taking the time to provide such a thorough reply.

Answering your questions:

• The workflow would be as simple as possible, and everybody would share it. I think it'd be an unavoidable tradeoff limitation.
• The same would apply to fields. Configurations would be kept as simple and homogeneous as possible.
• The purpose is that people can open tasks (and assign them to themselves or others) when there is not an appropriate project already set.

Considering your thoughts and the reasoning behind I think we will go ahead and try this approach.

Thank you very much once again.

Best regards,

M

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Like Laura said, I would evaluate Trello for your people. 

But in a place where people manage much of their tasks and issues in Jira, yes, a catch-all project can be a really good thing.  Simply because people can work off a single list - "list all the issues assigned to me and still need some action" really keeps life simple for people.

One place I worked at before Adaptavist did all of their tracking in Jira, to the point where we had projects for holidays (booking and then logging when you'd taken it), sickness (issues were just for logging time - you created them in a closed status when you returned) and and and. 

But we had three projects of closer interest to this question:

• A project everyone could create public issues in, which was for collecting issues from people who didn't know what project they should be creating issues in (or had not yet got create permission in it).
• A project for issues that did not fit into any particular project (a lot of these issues became Epics, or lead to the creation of new projects - one stands out to me - it was a one line "create software for doing stuff across many devices"; and there's a good chance you use it - I've got it on my 'phone, tablet, a mac, two Linux boxes, both TVs, my PVR, DVD player, Chromecast and Playstation).  When I left there, there was still only a one-liner Epic, but with links to about 30 projects dealing with different devices.
• A project for "to do".  Anyone could create issues in it, but it had a security scheme that meant only the reporter and the timesheet reports could see an issue in it.

[Soporte Atl]

Hi, @Nic Brough -Adaptavist-

Thank you very much.

Your view is really helpful to me.

Best regards,

M