What are the pros and cons of managing a business project using an EPIC vs using a PROJECT in JIRA?

[Hayder L]

Hi,

JIRA has been set up such that a JIRA project corresponds to a department. At the same time, we are looking to use JIRA for traditional project management and our bread and butter consists of client software projects.

Could anyone advise on the pros/cons of the usage of Epic vs Project in JIRA to manage a software project? Particularly relating access control (e.g. only project team members should be able to view project contents/tasks; project reporting in terms of milestones, resource management)

Thanks!

[mogavenasan]

Hi @Hayder L,

Epic is an Issue Type within a Project, which means Epic can only have 1 workflow, 1 screen scheme, 1 field configuration and etc.

Let's say, for example, you have Epic A and Epic B and you want them to have a different set of fields or workflow or statuses, that's not possible by default.

You can make a bunch of automation and/or use third-party apps to somehow get you there. This would also lead to more maintenance work in the future when you have a bunch of workarounds and hack around the product design.

For Project, well, you can have few Issue Types and they can be tied to almost all the schemes individually, which means each Issue Types can have a unique set of fields, field configuration, workflow, and etc.

Back to your question:

Could anyone advise on the pros/cons of the usage of Epic vs Project in JIRA to manage a software project? Particularly relating access control (e.g. only project team members should be able to view project contents/tasks; project reporting in terms of milestones, resource management)

Actually for this, if you already have an existing project that you would like to use, I will recommend adding a new Issue Type called "Access Control". You can use Issue Security Level if you want to separate the view permission of this Issue Type to others within the project.

Epic issue type is actually for some sort of categorization of a few stories. This is more to the software development methodology, where you have a parent task and then you break down it into smaller stories.

I hope that helps.

Thanks,
Moga