Shared or separate Jira projects for same application on different platforms?

[Ralph]

We have a desktop application that shares a single product roadmap, and is available on Windows and Mac.

Our team is structured as follows:

• Product owner
• Project manager
• Windows development team
• Mac development team
• API development team
• QA team

In terms of workflow:

• The API team works directly with the Windows team: this is their first point of integration
• Windows development precedes Mac development
• Mac team "copies" changes after they have been integrated into Windows
• Public releases for Windows and Mac happen at the same time, so there always feature-parity across platforms

We're debating whether to structure our Jira into separate projects or a single project with filtered boards for each team...

1. Separate projects

Windows, Mac and API would get their own projects.

Pros: highly customizable for each team.

Cons: difficult to get a birds-eye view, plan epics across platforms.

2. Single project

Use Components to create filtered boards for Windows, Mac, and API. So each team can work within their filtered boards.

Use Epics for features and individual Stories/Tasks/Bugs for each platform.

Pros: ability to get birds-eye view for product planning, while still being able to manage individual team work streams.

Cons: performance reporting at the individual team level might be more complicated.

--

Is there a best practice or most common approach for this type of situation?

We would definitely appreciate any insights from the community, pros and cons of each.

Thanks!

[Vasiliy Zverev]

Dear Ralf, hi!

I would reccomend you to have a look on project roles and permission schemes.

I mean that Mac command should be able to Mac and Windows issues, but not be able to close, resolve or be assignee for Windows issues.

[Ralph]

Hi @Vasiliy Zverev, thanks. In your situation, do you use separate on the same Jira project for different platform teams working on the same product?

And, if you use the same Jira project, what field do you use to segment the work? Component, something else like a custom "Platform" field?

[Vasiliy Zverev]

We usually use diffenerent projects, but the same permission schemas.

For segment we use components.

Since issue summaries are similar we want to be sure that any team will not work with issues of another teams.

[Ralph]

Thanks @Vasiliy Zverev

If you use different projects for each platform (e.g. Windows, Mac), and you want to use Epics for features that apply to both, do you have to duplicate the Epics across projects?

Or is there a way to share one Epic across different JIRA projects?

I'm guessing not, since Epics are just like any other ticket and have a specific project key.

[Vasiliy Zverev]

We do not use Epics at all, and Agile too.

We use 1,500 projects, so our case is quete specific one :).