BigPicture and Jira Project Setup Recommendations

Question

Our IT Department is maturing it's processes around managing projects and implementing resource planning to better set business expectations on when development projects will actually get completed. We have been tracking all development work in one Jira Project with using Labels to Identify what application the task was for. Besides our Developement team using Jira, we have other departments like HR, Help Desk, and Building Facilities also using Jira so we got in the habit of just using Projects per Department. Instead of Projects per Development Application.

We looked at BigPicture and feel this tool will improve our Resource Tracking along with providing an over all progress report to Senior Management on the progress of project requests. However... after going through some of the setup process of linking things up in BigPicture, I am beginning to wonder if our Development Team should re-think how we have been tracking project work. To get the best and easiest experience in the long run... should be we be changing our process to do a Project per Application and then linking BigPicture to that?

Side note: We also use BitBucket to track source code.

Dave Rosenlund (Trundl) · Accepted Answer

Hi, @Nick Thoman. IMO you may be posing a simple-sounding question that has no simple answer  😊  I.e., it sounds like one of those "it depends" situations so the best you are going to get from the community is: maybe.

That said, in my experience, it's usually best to adapt your tooling to your processes (vs. adapting your processes to your tooling). But there are exceptions to every rule. Maybe this is a good time to revisit your processes and the way you've chosen to define a project.

Only you and your colleagues can make that decision.

I know I'm not being particularly helpful here, but if I were you, I'd look at things independent of tooling first and if everyone is happy with the way you have previously decided to define a project, then you may want to figure out a way to adapt the tool to what your doing.

I hope this helps,

-dave