“It’s not Jira. It’s the junk we’ve thrown into it over the years.”
You’ve probably heard complaints like:
“Jira takes forever to load.”
“Dashboards crash half the time.”
“Searching tickets is painfully slow.”
And the worst part? Most of the time, Jira isn’t the problem — it’s the bloat that’s built up over time.
“Bloat” refers to unnecessary or excessive configuration data that accumulates over time — kind of like hoarding in a digital attic. It includes:
Hundreds of inactive projects
Thousands of custom fields no one uses
Screens, workflows, schemes created per project and never reused
Orphaned automation rules, unused filters, and stale dashboards
Legacy issue types still lingering from teams that no longer exist
Searching issues slows down or times out
Dashboards with complex gadgets fail to load
Admin screens like "Custom fields" or "Workflows" take minutes to open
Field context edits crash or timeout
New projects take longer to configure due to sheer config volume
Every team wants their own workflow or custom field
Projects are never archived, even after years
Admins fear deleting anything due to audit or compliance concerns
There’s no governance model, so duplicate configs explode
List out all custom fields — check usage frequency
Find inactive projects (no updates in 6+ months)
Identify screens, workflows, schemes not associated with any active project
Flag automation rules that haven’t run recently
Leverage Jira’s field usage insights
Use Marketplace apps like Optimizer for Jira or Cleaner for Jira
Create Forge-based internal tools to identify unused items
Instead of deleting, retire fields and workflows (rename to z_Retired_FieldName
)
Take XML backups before deletion
Archive or export old projects instead of deleting
Clean in waves: one category (fields, workflows, projects) per quarter
Create guidelines for:
When to create new custom fields
Project archiving timelines
Workflow reuse policy
Assign clear admin roles and use change logs to track who did what
With the clutter gone:
Admin tasks become faster and less error-prone
Users don’t scroll endlessly in transition screens
Dashboards load quickly
New team onboarding becomes smooth
Jira is a powerful engine — but if you overload it, it sputters.
Take a weekend to clean up your house, and suddenly, it feels brand new again. The same applies to Jira.
Akhand Pratap Singh
Systems Integration Advisor
NTT Data
Pune
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