When to use company-managed vs. team-managed projects

[#1]

Company-managed projects are like a well-structured orchestra 👯

• Centralized control: This is perfect for organizations that need consistent configurations across multiple projects.
• Advanced features: You get access to cross-project configurations and complex customizations for permissions and workflows.
• Admin oversight: Changes are managed by Jira admins, ensuring consistency and compliance.

Team-managed projects, on the other hand, are like a jazz band—flexible and adaptable 💃

• Autonomy: Teams can configure their projects independently, making it ideal for agile teams that need to move fast.
• Simplicity: You get easy setup and management without needing admin intervention.
• Customization: Teams can tailor their workflows and fields to suit their specific needs.

So... which one should you choose? 🧐

If your team values autonomy and quick setup, go for team-managed.

If your team needs consistency and advanced features, then company-managed is your best bet. Learn more about the differences. 

[John Funk]

Hi @Rachel Fischer  - Thanks for posting this! This is an easy one for me - When to use Team-managed project? NEVER!! Ha!

Convince me otherwise.   :-)

[Peggy Graham]

Hi @John Funk

I have to admit, your response literally made me LOL!!

I may not convince you otherwise, but I can see where a team-managed project can work well for a small team that doesn't really need to interact with others and is comfortable being their own Jira project admin.

Jira business projects use team-managed projects by default, unless you expand the options and change it to company-managed.  I would guess that the assumption is that the business teams are less likely to need to roll up to Plans and other Jira features where consistency matters more...

But, that's all I've got to convince you with, and you won't hurt my feelings at all if you stick with your assertion!  ;-)

--Peggy

[John Funk]

Thanks @Peggy Graham - of course part of the answer is a bit facetious. But I do really dislike that projects are defaulted to Team-managed. There should be no default at all and force user to select one of the other so they know what they are getting into. 

Many times (most times??) projects are created and the user has no idea that they got a Team-managed project with less functionality and need to share information or customize the project more. And they can't. So now they are forced to try to migrate to a Company-managed project and lose things in the process because its not intuitive or easy. 

Many teams think they are stand alone and don't need to connect with anyone else, but that kind of goes against everything Atlassian preaches about collaboration and connectedness. We should be encouraging more of this, not less of this, in my opinion. 

It would be great if someone could create a comprehensive list of things you can do in Company-managed that you can't do in Team-managed projects to help guide others. I guess I need to take up my own challenge. HA! I wish that I had been documenting each one as I have come across them. It would take quite a bit of work to do it now. 

Team-managed projects have their place, but I feel like that is a very small minority. 

[Peggy Graham]

@John Funk - I agree, I do think you should have to specify if you want team managed or company managed, this should NOT be hidden!

And, while I know YOU know, for anyone else reading this page that maybe less familiar, below are the two very different experiences you will see if you create a software project vs a business project:

Jira Software Project(scrum, kanban, etc.):	Jira Business Project:
The Software project has no default, you have to choose which option to use:	After expanding Show more:

This help series of articles is the best I have seen for the differences:

Learn how company-managed and team-managed projects differ 

But, it's not all one page, that would be ideal!

There is also this for Plans, now that you can add TMP to a plan, this shows the limitations there:

Limitations of team-managed projects in your plan

But, now I do have to share the story of a customer with an over-zealous Jira admin that would not allow ANY custom fields or ANY changes to workflow.  Can these things get out of hand?  Absolutely!  But zero changes is too far the other way, imho.  In this case, the person I was working with felt they had no choice but to use a TMP to get around the admin who's favorite word was NO! 

[Peggy Graham]

I just realized I should add something to my above comment.

I am NOT suggesting that team-managed projects are a great way to get back at your Jira Admin for saying No to a customization request!

Perhaps more as a cautionary tale for all you Jira admins out there - not to be so rigid your Jira users start creating team-managed projects out of desperation...  ;-)

[Peggy Graham]

UPDATE: 2/10/2025

I wanted to add an amazing resource I just came across that goes deeper on this topic, for anyone that might find this helpful:

From Atlassian Success Central: Team-managed and company-managed projects