What are the implications of moving a Program from one Solution to another Solution in Jira Align?

[Vinay Sharma]

We have Jira Align and Jira Cloud integration.

As a part of reorganization, we need to move few programs from one Solution to another Solution in the same Portfolio in Jira Align.

Is there any implication? Are there any best practices / recommendations here? Please suggest

[Rich Sparks · Accepted solution]

My friend @Peter Jessen wrote a great article about the implications of moving a Team here: https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-Align-questions/What-are-the-implications-of-moving-a-team-from-1-train-to/qaq-p/1339252

A lot of the points he raised in that article about a team also apply to an entire Program.

There are many good reasons to restructure the portfolios, solutions and programs, especially as you discover more about how your teams work together to deliver value to your customers. (There are bad reasons too! Constantly reshuffling teams makes it difficult to build any sort of momentum, team cohesiveness, and predictability.)

A couple key considerations:

• Try to make changes on PI boundaries. That way, you can keep and learn from any metrics you gathered in previous PIs.
• Take the opportunity to clean up your Jira backlogs. In many cases, it is best to create new Jira projects and boards for the teams that are moving and only move the relevant Jira issues into the new projects.

In general, the best practice is 

1. Set up the new program in Jira Align (and we recommend a new project in Jira
2. Set up each of the teams in the new program
3. Set up the teams' backlog in Jira (move only the necessary issues to the new project)
4. Update the Jira project and board mapping in Jira Align with the new programs
5. When you're all set and things are working as you wish, deactivate the old teams and programs in Jira Align (so they don't show in drop-down lists).
6. If you added new Jira projects and aren't using the old ones any more, remove them from the Jira Align project list so the connector doesn't keep checking.

[Vinay Sharma]

Thanks @Rich Sparks for a prompt response!