The success of a project depends on effective management and collaboration between team members. Atlassian’s Jira tool proves to be an ideal platform for agile-type projects. It improves the fluidity of communication in the team, productivity, and project monitoring. Through this beginner’s guide, we’ll share the top reasons for Jira’s popularity, explaining how it is transforming the way businesses manage projects.
Project management is essential in any industry. As many companies work on increasingly complex and time-sensitive projects daily, the need for effective project management tools becomes more critical. JIRA is a popular software solution by Atlassian that helps teams collaborate and manage their work better and more effectively. With a wide range of features to manage test cases, specifications, and software development projects, there are many reasons why Jira is developers’ favorite.
As an agile software development company, we share the top reasons for Jira’s popularity and a guide to its features and uses below.
A Beginner’s Guide to Jira and Its Popularity!
Jira Software is a project management solution that allows teams to organize themselves efficiently, establish lasting communication, and visualize the project at a glance, thanks to its personalized dashboards. This tool is recognized as the solution most used by software development teams.
Jira Software also allows you to:
- Work in agile method thanks to Kanban and Scrum boards
- Accelerate the delivery of your projects
- Continuously improve your projects
- Facilitate the work of your teams
Which Teams Use Jira Software?
Originally Jira was a product very oriented towards the world of software development. But this solution has evolved into a powerful and flexible work management tool that can be applied to almost any case in agility-oriented contexts—one of the many reasons for Jira’s popularity.
Jira adapts to different teams in a company. Jira Work Management for business teams (Marketing/HR/Finance, etc.), Jira Service Management for support teams (DevOps), and Jira Software for software development teams (Agile Team) or for complex project management.
Jira Software for Project Management
Jira Software isn’t just for software development. For example, it is common for several teams to participate in the same project. Thanks to Jira Software, the teams can work together and monitor the project’s progress in real-time.
Why use Jira Software to manage your project?
- To visualize the progress of your project thanks to Agile boards (Kanban or Scrum)
- To perform quality reporting using dashboards
- To work remotely using the Jira Software Cloud mobile app
Jira Software for Development Teams
Jira Software is developers’ favorite because it is their go-to software. The software supports employees in each stage of the development cycle: setting up tasks, prioritizing, deploying new features, etc. Thanks to the apps and multiple possible integrations, you will only use the same tool to work with.
Why use Jira Software when you are on a development team?
- To integrate it with a Git repository (Bitbucket, Github, Gitlab, etc.)
- To have a visual follow-up of tasks: backlog, dashboard, agile board
- To manage the progress of the project using reporting
- To work remotely using the Jira Software Cloud mobile app
Understanding Jira Software
Jira Software may seem like a complex tool to use. However, once the tool is understood, it will become essential for project management. Here’s a quick overview of the software’s different elements: a project, a workflow, agile boards (Scrum or Kanban), the backlog and the dashboard. In addition, we offer you the very first Jira dictionary to master the terms covered in the solution.
What is an issue in Jira?
A ticket (formerly called a request) is a task. It is a work item. A ticket follows several stages: to do, then in progress, then finished. We can say that the ticket goes through each workflow step – workflow. Issues in Jira Software can be of several types. In a software development project, there are the following types of tickets:
An epic is considered a big goal that needs to be simplified and divided into several tasks to organize the work of agile teams – using epics in Jira Software
- A story represents a feature to be realized
- A task is usually a technical task to be performed
- A bug means a problem that needs to be fixed
What is a Project in Jira?
A Jira project group issues together to achieve a goal. In Jira Software, you have different ways to build a project: you can create one per team or product. It depends on your project vision and the organization of your teams.
Each Jira project has a unique key. For example, for a marketing project, the key could be MKG. This will impact the identifiers of each ticket: the first ticket created will be MKG-1, the second ticket MKG-2, etc.
The project’s organization is important because it manages access rights, making it possible to guarantee the confidentiality of the information. Your Human Resources colleague will not have access to software development projects; conversely, developers will not see HR tickets.
What is a Workflow?
A workflow represents the steps that a ticket must follow in a project. It helps structure the product development process. In Jira Software, you can use existing workflows or customize them according to the organization of the project.
How to View Projects on Jira?
Agile boards: Scrum and Kanban
You have different ways to view and organize your projects on Jira Software. You have to choose the most suitable agile board for your team: Scrum or Kanban board. The Scrum method is strongly linked to the software world, while Kanban, originally a method used in the manufacturing sector, identifies and optimizes bottlenecks in a production chain.
View of Jira Issues in the Backlog
A backlog is a list of features related to your project. Prioritizing the backlog is key to organizing the team’s tasks.
Visualize the Jira Project with a Dashboard
To have a global vision of the project, you can customize a dashboard using gadgets. Add graphs, pie charts, or even diagrams, and easily follow your team’s work. Dashboards also facilitate reporting to see how many tickets have been handled in the week, for example.
Follow the Jira Project Through the Roadmap
Roadmaps in Jira allow you to visualize, plan and track projects. Two types of roadmap are available:
- Advanced Roadmap, available on Jira Software Cloud Premium
- Basic Roadmap, available in all Jira Software Cloud plans
Cloud or Data Center—Which type of Atlassian Hosting to Choose?
Atlassian offers two options for hosting your Jira Software solution: Cloud or Data Center. Let’s look closer at which solution best suits your needs and your business problem. The best is to accompany yourself with a Jira service management company to choose the right path.
Choose Jira Software Cloud
Opting for a Cloud license means giving yourself certain freedom. You don’t need to schedule updates to your solution. It’s done automatically. You then have preview access to all new product features. It adapts perfectly to your organization.
The advantages of Cloud hosting are rapid evolution, high security of your instances, flexible subscription allowing you to add users easily, promotes remote work thanks to the Jira Software Cloud app. Consult a Jira service management company to help you in this regard.
Choose Jira Software Data Center
The Data Center guarantees high availability and performance at scale for your Jira Software solution. You host the tools of the Atlassian suite independently. With active clustering, teams can work around the clock with uninterrupted access to the necessary tools.
The plus of Data Center hosting: the solutions are made for large companies and offer high security and total control over your infrastructure.
Cost of Jira
The price of the Jira Software solution will depend on the type of hosting chosen (Cloud or Data Center) and the number of users.
- The version is free for up to 10 users and offers all the basic features for project management.
- Like all online tools, the paid versions will give access to more advanced features, useful for large companies.
Atlassian, of course, encourages the use of its entire range of tools. Thus, Jira will be more interesting for software teams, in particular, if they use other tools like Bitbucket (for code management) and Confluence (for documentation).
Jira’s Popularity-Its Benefits For Users and Businesses
Jira’s gains are quite numerous. For the user, the tool allows greater visibility of their work in progress, which makes it possible to adjust and optimize their time and autonomy. The rest of the teams and the company gain transparency.
Here’s why Jira is popular:
Track Project’s Progress
Indeed, Jira allows you to know the progress of one or more projects in real-time, follow the team’s velocity, and have a delivery forecast, leading to better pro-activity and better organization since issues are identified more quickly. In short, these advantages are real gains for the company.
Organization, Time Tracking, and Prioritization
With JIRA, companies can organize tasks into sprints or iterations and set priorities based on the importance and urgency of each task. This ensures that resources are used efficiently and projects are completed on time. They can also track the time spent on each task and compare it to the estimated time. This makes it easy to identify bottlenecks and areas that require budget or resource adjustments.
Improves Collaboration
Another benefit that adds to Jira’s popularity is that it facilitates communication and collaboration among team members by providing a centralized platform where everyone can access project information and track progress.
Integration with Other Tools
JIRA easily integrates with other popular tools companies use, such as Slack, Trello, Google Drive, and Adobe Creative Cloud, enabling even more seamless collaboration and automation tools like Zapier and Integromat. For example, an agency could use Zapier to automatically create a new task in JIRA when a client receives an email with a specific request.
Team Performance Evaluation
Companies can use JIRA to assess team member performance based on criteria such as task completion, timeliness, and quality of work delivered. This can help identify areas for improvement and ensure that all team members are aligned with agency goals.
Looking for the Best Jira Service Management Company to Customize Your Jira Software Solution?
If Jira’s popularity has convinced you to opt for this software solution, and you’re looking for an agile software development company, contact Vates.
We are an International Software Development Company offering a wide range of services, including custom software development services, Big Data consulting services, IT consulting services, and more. Above all, the Vate team will support you on the Jira Software solution from A to Z.
Jira Software solution can be fully customized using apps from the Atlassian Marketplace. These allow you to add new features to your software. Customize the interface to reflect your company’s image, integrate Jira with other tools in your information system, and boost the efficiency of your teams with Vates.
Get in touch today for more information!
