How to set up JIRA for a multi region rollout?

[Rohan Sharma]

Hi,

We will be initiating a project wherein we will be changing the core operational system which impact each product and system in the firm. It will be rolled out to multiple regions. We will be utilizing JIRA to manage the program. I was hoping to get thoughts from the community on how best we can manage this on JIRA. 

Suggestions from the community is welcomed. 

Thanks and regards

[Walter Buggenhout · Accepted solution]

Hi @Rohan Sharma and welcome to the Community!

I am not sure if a simple question here on the forum would be the right place to cover a multiple year challenge. Let's say that the idea you put forward seems to make sense at first sight, but there will be much and much more to running a successful project than setting up a number of Jira projects.

Configuration elements you can work with in Jira to organise your work are largely:

• Projects: containers that hold your issues
• Issues with Issue types: every piece of work you put in Jira is an issue. An issue is of a certain issue type, which identifies basically what type of work it is, its attributes (custom fields) and its workflow.
• Components: a generic term to define subsections of a project. Components are used to group issues within a project into smaller parts. Note that they are project specific.
• Versions: or in software projects also referred to as releases. They may be technical, but also represent the time dimension when speaking about project planning (a version has a name, but also a start and end date).
• Custom fields: let you specify literally any type of additional attributes to issues.

Try to avoid using concepts that are linked to single Jira projects for organisational stuff that spans multiple projects (e.g. components). 

For planning and tracking work across multiple projects, you will definitely either need a premium plan (so you can use advanced roadmaps for cross-project planning) or a decent cross-project planning / reporting tool on top of your vanilla Jira.

Before diving into project setup, think who your teams are going to be running this. What access do they need? How are they going to plan their work? What reporting requirements do you have? Should they be available per work stream, per country, per manager, ...? Be aware that everything you should need to get out of the tool should also get in ...

Jira will be great to help you plan, track, assign and report status of the work itself. But - definitely in projects of this size - take into account that you will need to keep track of meeting notes, decisions, technical documentation, ... Confluence will be a much better tool for all those things and will integrate nicely. 

If you need help in setting things up, don't hesitate to engage with a solution partner near you. Starting right may be a big time (and money) saver in the long run.

Hope this helps!