Guidelines to manage Jira hierarchy. What factors should I consider while creating, modifying?

[Taduri_ Kiran]

For example if I create a Jira Hierarchy like below

Category - Project - Initiative-Epic-Story-Subtask

and if I want modify this hierarchy by adding or removing levels what are the impacts?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

I'm afraid you are absolutely wrong.  That sounds blunt, rude and aggressive, but I am trying to keep the answer short.   Jira admins can not create any hierarchy (beyond the minor points of being able to effectively enable or disable Epics, Categories and Sub-tasks)

I would be very interested in where you got the misconception from.  But that's just my curiosity about bad sources of information, not relevant for talking through how it works.

Start with the basics: a plain Jira with no applications (Service Desk or Software) or apps added to it, and let's ignore the admin ability to turn off a couple of bits.  The hierarchy for that is

Project Category -> Project -> Issue -> Sub-task

Now add Jira Software.  This brings in Epics, but it's not a simple layer in the hierarchy.  Epics are still an issue, in a project (and hence category), but you can add stories from other projects into them.

Then, we install Portfolio - this adds Themes and Initiatives, and other layers (above issue) if you want.

Then, we install Structure - this does give you a totally free-form hierarchy.  And it works well.  The only worry I have with Structure is other apps -some fail to work with it.

[Taduri_ Kiran]

Thank you very much for the clarification.  I may have misread one of the blogs/post with an understanding that Jira Hierarchy is configurable.  But your response help remove that misconception.  Finally is there a data model or hierarchy model blog that you can refer on this topic?

You mentioned - "Then, we install Structure - this does give you a totally free-form hierarchy".  Can you please share any blog or source to understand this more.

Thank you for sharing your knowledge!

[Dave Rosenlund]

Hi, Kiran.  This article does not exactly match your request. However, the ideas/principles explained in it may help you.  It was written by @Philip Heijkoop _ALM Works_. Phil and I work for ALM Works, the company that makes Structure.  Let us know if we can help in some way.

-dave [ALM Works]

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

I've not really got any docs on the hierarchy model.  But what I wrote before is just about everything that would go into a doc on that subject.

If you want to have a different hierarchy in Jira, Structure is the best option in my experience.  (Portfolio also, but only if your changes are about themes and initatives above Epic)

[Taduri_ Kiran]

Thank you again for all your help !

[Taduri_ Kiran]

Thank you Dave for sharing !

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Nothing.  As you can't change the hierarchy, there can be no impact.

[Taduri_ Kiran]

I may be wrong but I believe Jira Admin role can create hierarchy as needed, Jira software does not impose any specific hierarchy