When to use what product: Trello vs. Jira Core vs. Jira Portfolio

[Cornelius Dufft]

Hi, as a software development manager I have much experience with Jira Software and Confluence. I have used these tool successfully also for non-software development work.

Recently, as honorary member of the board of trustees of a private school (from age 3 to age 19), I am looking for a tool to organize and collaborate with parents, teachers, administration, and pupils about school initiatives, small and big, e.g. "maintenance to repair wast paper basket" or "how to better prevent mobbing" or "how to improve teaching plans in class 11". 

The tool should

• be easy to use with low skill entry possible
• be fun and motivating to use
• organize "projects" and the portfolio of projects

From the webpage I understand:

Jira Core = central project management, focus on tracking, more from the "boss" perspective

Jira Portfolio = central portfolio management of a collection of (Jira Software) projects

Trello = not so full-functional, but more intuitive Kanban-style tool, focus on team organizing their work, unclear if overarching portfolio (i.e. collection of projects) can be managed.

What tool is best suitable for the work at hand?

I am looking forward to your comments!

[Paz]

@Cornelius Dufft, what a fun challenge to use Atlassian products for! And thanks for giving the details about your requirements, it certainly helps.

A few follow-up questions:

1. How many families do you need to communicate with? I'm looking for a rough estimate of how many accounts you might need.
2. How many administrators will be helping you? IT staff? 
3. Do you imagine people would need to visit this site without logging in? Or would all the content be exclusively behind an account/password?

[Mary Ramirez]

Hi @Cornelius Dufft,

I previously worked in a school district that used Trello. Trello was the easiest option because of its simplicity and ability to sync with Google Drive. I'd recommend Trello for your goal because teaching parents, teachers and administration Jira may be too time-consuming. Trello is very practical for planning and organizing at a large scale. It isn't as efficient as Jira is in logging work and tracking sub-task. For planning and collaborating on initiatives like vacant positions, I think it'll work best. Here's a blog post of Trello being used to plan a vacation. Unconventional, but a practical approach.