Help Needed: Best Way to Model “Project Phases” and “Project Segments” in Jira Premium

[cvanduyn]

Hi everyone,

We’re working on an application development project that includes several layers of work breakdown: phases, project segments, features, epics, stories, tasks, base-level items, and subtasks.

Since we’re on Jira Premium but cannot add a separate Atlassian site, we’re limited to the standard work item hierarchy:

Initiative → Epic → Base Level Item → Sub-task

We’re trying to map our internal model to this hierarchy as cleanly as possible, and we’d appreciate guidance on best practices.

✔️ Our current thinking

• Project Phase → Initiative
  We believe Initiatives best represent high-level phases and will support governance and top-level reporting.

• Project Segment → ?
  We need something that represents a major slice of the application — bigger than an Epic but smaller/more specific than an Initiative. We’re considering mapping Project Segment to Component, since segments seem to align with parts of the application rather than timeline-based deliverables.

• Feature → Epic

• Stories, tasks, subtasks → Base-level work or smaller

❓ Questions for the community

1. Is mapping “Project Segment” to Components a recommended approach?
   Or would we be better off creating a custom field for this type of categorization?

2. Can Components or custom fields support useful reporting (e.g., progress % or roll-up reporting)?

3. Do Components align well with iterative/incremental delivery, where a segment represents an area of the application rather than a time-bound Initiative or Epic?

4. Is our overall mapping (Phase → Initiative, Segment → Component) aligned with Atlassian best practices?
   Or are we missing a better approach within the limitations of the standard hierarchy?

📌 Context

• Epics feel too small for our “segment” concept.

• Initiatives feel too large/cross-cutting.

• We want to avoid misusing Epic/Initiative just to fit the hierarchy.

• We cannot modify or extend the work item hierarchy.

Any advice, examples, or experience with similar setups would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance!