When it comes to project management, there are plenty of options out there. If you are looking for advanced solutions, options like Asana can be a great choice. Then there are basic ones like Trello for the beginners and amateurs. However, customisation is what you are looking up to achieve with respect to your project management; nothing can perhaps beat JIRA.
But, if you want to make the best out of your JIRA project management, there are a few tips you need to follow. Something that can be termed as JIRA project management best practices can be helpful in getting the best out of your project management task.
But, before that, a little info on what is JIRA and how it can help you.
JIRA Project management – An Overview
Designed and developed by Atlassian, JIRA is a centralized and fully customisable project management system. You can log all the projects into the database, and each of them will pass through the processes. These processes are called workflows. Like Gartner stated in its report in 2017, “JIRA can be considered when you are looking for a comprehensive solution for running both agile and traditional projects, and have limited needs for portfolio-level functionality.”
JIRA project management best practices – A list of mistakes to be avoided
Well, the best practices do not necessarily need to be seen as guidelines. After all, JIRA is highly customisable, but the customisation itself is a complex and complicated process. That is exactly where you are bound to make mistakes. The JIRA project management best practices should ideally help you avoid those mistakes.
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Learn how to organise your JIRA projects
A JIRA project is a collection of work items that JIRA loves to call “issues”. It would be advisable to keep the states, issue types, and fields to the bare minimum level.
Some of the good practices can include:
- Organise your projects based on the group of work items that are bound by a common release cycle.
- Opting for a team-based work model can be yet another great option. It can be helpful in straight forward management of project permissions.
- You can even consider organising teams around larger business units – viz marketing, IT development, and HR, for instance.
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Structuring your JIRA Project
The next one in the list for JIRA project management best practices would be how to structure your JIRA Project. Organising your work in JIRA is quite fundamental to ensure a cleaner and effective implementation.
In sharp contrast to the other project management tools which set a deadline, JIRA represents a continuously ongoing project. Of course, a project can be archived once it is completed. Once again, it is important and useful to organise the projects by releasable products that share a common release cycle.
Team-based and business unit based organisations can be one of the practical solutions just as in the case of how to organise the JIRA projects.
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JIRA Workflow Best Practices
Avoid the confusing resolutions with respect to the statuses. Setting the proper resolutions to the issues would be an added advantage. Mark the change appropriately when an issue moves from an unresolved state to a resolved state.
One of the best JIRA project management best practices would include keeping the JIRA workflow as simple as would be possible. Each of the statuses you add will increase the complexity and introduce more numbers of transitions.
Workflow is the key to achieve success in JIRA. Make sure you build them effectively and efficiently. If you are a beginner in the realm of Jira project management, make sure that you have been following the right directions to achieve the best results.
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Best practices for Epics and stories in JIRA
An epic in JIRA or any of the Agile project management refers to the large part of work that can be divided into smaller tasks. These smaller tasks are referred to as Stories.
They form an important part of a JIRA Project management initiative. Of course, there are no ways you would opt for that would be termed as compulsory or one size fits all. Following the right practices through the tutorials offered by Atlassian can be quite effective in understanding the basic principles of working with JIRA project management.
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Avoid these Mistakes in JIRA Project Management
Well, there are few mistakes you should avoid so that you would be following the proper implementation of the software and engage in JIRA project management best practices.
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Never create duplicate JIRA issues
Well, it can be quite tempting to create issues just like that. Check the existing issues before you can create new ones. Avoid the duplication of issues or issue statuses so that it will jeopardise the proper workflow functionality.
Duplicate issue statuses can make the admins opt for extensive customisation and thus can cause the teams to move in different directions.
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Avoid too much customisation
This should be more applicable to the workflows in JIRA. Opting for the proper and consistent customisation across the organisation would make it a great option. Too much of the customisation can lead to difficulty in interconnecting between the different workflows.
Try minimising the compatibility issues between the workflows. At least, try keeping the customisation consistent within a particular department. That would be the minimum requirement and the best option among the JIRA project management best practices.
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Customising workflows without consulting the users
This is yet another annoying habit where you would customise workflow without mapping the workflows and without talking to the users. In fact, it can increase the work for admins and can put a huge workload.
Do not hasten in customising the workflows – that should be one of the prime aspects in ensuring that you are following the JIRA project management best practices.
Anything else you should know?
Well, yes. Apart from what we have covered already, a few other best practices would involve the entire JIRA Project management schedule. Ensuring proper compliance can assure a better result.
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Clean up the unused instances
Inactive accounts and unused configurations are the man reason you would find affecting the right functioning of your performance. Cleaning up the JIRA instance can be an excellent step in the direction of ensuring perfect performance.
You can make use of the best practices and clean up your JIRA instances would be to use the tools like Optimiser for JIRA.
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Use the right Hosting option
Jira offers you three major options when hosting your Jira instances. Choose the right options based on your exact requirements.
Datacentre hosting suits larger businesses. It provides access to highly scalable operations and runs on multiple server configurations. The Server options can suit the areas where you have static requirements that can be hosted on a single server. Cloud hosting can be a great choice if you are looking to opt for the JIRA project management for smaller teams.
A few other tips that help you achieve the JIRA project management best practices can include:
- Limit the number of admins in a system. Too many cooks spoil the broth, as they say, and this should be applicable for JIRA Project management as well.
- Decide on the right templates right in the beginning and stick to them. This will improve the consistent performance.
- Opt for a test system where the users can experiment.
- Install the additional tools like JIRA Toolkit, Suite Utilities, Calendar, and Charting add-ons. They can help you improve your performance.
Well, JIRA project management software can be an excellent option in more ways than one. Opting for the right JIRA project management best practices can help you get the best out of the capabilities offered by the platform.
If you are new to JIRA and have been attempting to get hold of the tool, the above best practices featured should help you get accustomed with ease.
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