Best Practice for Managing Diverse HR Tasks on Jira Software: Single Project vs Multi Projects

[Amin]

Hello Atlassian Community,

I'm seeking advice on the best practice for managing a variety of tasks within Jira at a companty which has around 500 employees. 

Our department has a Jira project  for Human Resources which encompasses a broad range of tasks including:

• Daily tasks of the HR department staff.
• Requests submitted by managers that require processing by the HR team, such as tickets for staffing requirements.
• Requests from other employees to the HR department, like tickets for training or issuing certificates.

My question is: Should we continue to house all these different types of tasks and tickets within this single Jira project, or is it more efficient to separate them into different projects? What is considered best practice in such scenarios?

Note: The HR project currently contains all these types of tickets.

Any insights or experiences you can share would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you,

[Trudy Claspill · Accepted solution]

Hello @Amin 

Are you facing challenges with the data all being in one project?

Things that I consider when deciding if data should be in one project or split into multiple projects are:

1. Is there a need to prevent some team members from seeing some issues, or is it okay for all team members to see all issues?

2. What are the reporting needs for the data? Do you need to be able to combine the data for all types of work into a single report? Do you need to be able to report on subsets or types of work?

3. How do you identify the different types of work? Are those issue types, or do you use something like Components or a selection list field to identify the type of work.

4. Who needs to be able to create new issues?

5. How quickly is the volume of issues in the project growing? A large volume of issues will eventually slow down the search functions.

6. Do you plan to leverage the Issue Archiving feature?

Answering questions like those will inform the decisions you make about using separate projects or one project.

[Amin]

Thank you Trudy

[Caity Belta]

Hi @Amin 

First of all, glad you got an answer here!

I just came across your post. I'm working with Atlassian JSM Product Managers. We recently created an HR Professionals community group. It's just getting started so there isn't a ton of activity yet, but we're hoping to make it a place where customers, community leaders, and product managers can talk about how they are using (or wish they could be using) Atlassian Products for HR applications. If that sounds interesting, check it out & join! See you in the group! Thanks! Caity

[Mary from Planyway]

Hi @Amin 

It's Mary from Planyway

When managing a variety of tasks within Jira, especially for a department like Human Resources that handles a broad range of activities, the decision to keep all tasks within a single project or to separate them into different projects depends on several factors. Here are some insights and best practices to consider:

1. Evaluate Your Current Needs and Challenges: Assess the volume of tasks, the diversity of the workflows required, and the specific needs of your stakeholders. If different types of tasks are causing confusion or inefficiency, it might be beneficial to separate them.

2. Consider Future Scalability: As your company grows, so will the volume and complexity of HR tasks. What works now in a single project might not scale effectively. Consider whether multiple projects might provide better long-term flexibility.

3. Stakeholder Input: Gather input from the HR team, managers, and other employees who interact with the Jira project. Their experiences can provide valuable insights into whether a single project meets their needs or if multiple projects would improve efficiency.

4. Experiment and Iterate: You don't have to make a permanent decision right away. Jira allows for flexibility, so you could try splitting a specific category of tasks into a separate project as a pilot and measure the impact on efficiency and satisfaction.

5. Use Jira Features to Maintain Connectivity: If you opt for multiple projects, utilize features like linked issues, dashboards, and advanced search queries to maintain visibility across projects and ensure that the team can still see the big picture.

Also, I'd recommend you trying to adapt some visual tool like Planyway as it can be handy for your HR workflow because you'll get:

• Timeline and Calendar Views: Planyway allows users to visualize tasks in a timeline or calendar view, making it easier for HR teams to see the distribution of tasks over time, manage deadlines, and ensure timely completion of activities like training sessions, interview schedules, and employee evaluations.
• Resource Management: It provides an overview of what each team member is working on, helping to balance workloads and identify any potential bottlenecks or over-allocations. This is particularly useful in HR for tracking the responsibilities of different staff members and ensuring equitable distribution of tasks.
  
  

[Amin]

Thank you