What is the best way to manage a project that has different parts?

[William Guerra]

Hello, I am the PM of a Startup that has 5 products and 3 platforms that are divided into multiple large sections, all focused on digital signage and communications in different companies. To handle all these things we created several projects in Jira, but I am not satisfied because everything is handled as if each part of the product was a different project. This makes me have to be moving from one project to another, when the product is the same.

For example: we have a product called "Messaging" that has:
- A web platform from where the sending of messages is managed
- An application for: Windows PC, Linux and Mac; Smartphones Adroid and IoS

At Jira we create a project for each of its divisions (6 projects for the same product). But I don't think it is a good practice because it is coming and going when together it is a product that has many interrelated stories.

Is there a better way to handle this situation?

[KAGITHALA BABU ANVESH · Accepted solution]

HI @William Guerra ,

Project > Component > Epic > Story / Task / Bug > Sub-task.

1 Create a project (Huge Task)

2. Later create all 6 divisions as components in it.

3.  If You have a huge requirement in particular Division , you can create a epic in component.

when creating a ticket > choose component with respective division

4. If you want to divide the epic into multiple tasks > create Stories / Tasks in Epic.

when you creating a story there is a field called "Epic Link" --> which shows previously created epics and Add Component

5. If any minor works on Story / Task you can able to create Sub-tasks.

Please try this above on a test project.

[William Guerra]

Thanks for your help. I'll try your sugestions by setting on test project.

It would be wonderful if Attalssian explore the idea of manage subproject or something more intuitive to manage subseccions o subprojects.

[Clark Everson · Accepted solution]

Hi @William Guerra ,

Welcome to the Community!

There's a few ways to do this depending on your needs and how you thing projects in the company would scale. If the company is new to Jira however, I highly recommend hiring an Atlassian Partner https://www.atlassian.com/partners

The reason I suggest this is they can help you guys establish standards for Atlassian and help make sure they are maintained as you scale. Or you can hire someone.

One thing many people do is just throw everything at Jira then try and clean it up later and this ends up being far more costly in the long run.

Back to your question:

If you want to do this via one project, I would recommend setting up components for the products and platforms and use epics to keep track of the sections. Though this isn't the way i would recommend, it is a way to do it from one project.

If you use multiple projects you can make boards that see all the projects, and then each product and platform would be its own project. The large sections would be the components for the project.

If you had initiatives that scale across more than one product or platform you can create a separate project to track these and then link the issues to these via that one cross functional board.

If you want a better higher level view for your leadership from there you can upgrade to Cloud Premium and get Advanced Roadmaps and  create dependencies and use automation to assign work etc.

I would recommend also taking a look at some of the trainings they make for Jira: https://training.atlassian.com/jira-catalog

Hope this helps!

Best,

Clark

[William Guerra]

Thank you.

I would like why this "If you want to do this via one project, I would recommend setting up components for the products and platforms and use epics to keep track of the sections. Though this isn't the way i would recommend, it is a way to do it from one project" is not recomended for you.

I'll try both "components" and multiple boards in the same project to find what is better for me.

Thanks.

[Clark Everson]

The reason I would not recommend it is scalability.

Starting out, using one project is fine, however with the multitude of things you are tracking and having previously worked at a Start Up(that's actually where most of my knowledge was developed), I know how quickly they grow. With that said, the constant growth of different teams and different project managers etc, it's easier to split work up on the project level. From an executive level and scalability, a tool like smartsheets or Advanced Roadmaps brings the information together to see a larger picture the way you are describing and allows for more flexibility as your company expands/hits the rapid growth portion most start ups go through.

However, with that said, if you are still figuring out how to do things, I can't stress enough using a Solution Partner, it's often overlooked but will save you so much time and money down the road if these are the tools you are going to use.

Best,
Clark

[Danno]

@William Guerra I agree with @Clark Everson on the two options for you to try. I have used both methods with success. Either way will work to keep things under one roof. The biggest issue I see for you to make this work is training the users and setting up permissions, etc. to manage what people see when they use the tool. Use a sandbox (if it's available to you) to set things up and test it first.

My biggest issue as a beginner org and site admin/team lead was not realizing what my users could see and do. Having clear instructions for onboarding new users is essential.

Creating the various boards will put your filtering skills to the test as well. I still make the mistake every so often of creating/modifying filters on the fly in an active environment. Fight this urge. Create the filters first, and see if you get everything you need before assigning it to a board.