What do you use Jira Projects for? Teams, Projects, Products, Programs........???

Question

Hi,

Our Jira leads are building out an Enterprise instance of Jira (More than 50 Agile Teams) but we don't seem to have a strategy as to what we are using a Jira Project for.

* Is it a long-living Agile Team?
* Is it a short-term project?
* Is it a large Program of work? 
* Is it a Product line?

I'm looking for some guidance and advice on what others have done and been successful with

Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Answer

@Jack Brickey already said most of what I wanted to say, but I do want to add that I think through how I want to be using the data, through two simple guidelines.

* A board is a team's work
* A project is a way to group together a load of issues that have common processes and data (fields and workflows)

As a board can include many projects, even with different setups, you don't need to limit teams to projects, but you can, and should, use projects to group together related issues  A good starting point, if you are unsure, is to think about what you want to report on, and work backwards through the design!

Jack Brickey · Answer

Hi @Lee Street ,

so this, to some extent, is subjective. Here is my $0.02...

I would answer "yes" to all of your examples. However, in some cases

* a short-term project might be an Epic within a project
* a long-living agile team could work thru one or more scrum boards across one or more projects

here are some of my typical approaches...

* development activities: product = project
* Business activities: long-living processes = project, short-term project = project
* individual's work - occasionally = project, if they don't fit in any existing project