How to change "Software project" subtitle?

[Ben Werner]

I'm using Jira Software for projects that are bigger than software (they include hardware and cross-functional elements). Therefore it would be nice for clarity (especially as I onboard people) to change the default "Software project" subtitle that appears under the project title and icon, to something more generic and/or appropriate. 

Any knowledge of how to do this (or related philosophical advice around using Jira Software for crossfunctional projects) would be greatly appreciated...

[Walter Buggenhout · Accepted solution]

Hi @Ben Werner,

As far as I know, you can't update that. So I'm afraid this will be some related philosophical advice ;-) ...

Jira has 3 main types of projects (and even underlying products): Jira Software / Jira Service Management / Jira Work Management (fka Jira Core). This subtitle indicates what type of product this project belongs to. And if you ever need help from support or the Community, it is really helpful to understand what type of Jira product your project belongs too. The features of those products are very different, so I guess Atlassian wants this information to be easy to find. 

[Ben Werner]

Thanks Walter - this provides clarity. 

A follow-on question if you're willing: is the intent of these 3 Jira products to provide complementary workflow management in a crossfunctional sense (among different departments/functions within a company)? Do they "merge" in Jira Align, or do they interface in some other way?

[Walter Buggenhout]

Hey Ben,

Sure. Those products target different teams with different needs. All products are built on the common Jira platform. They share some very important concepts like:

• issues are always stored in a project;
• issues always have an issue type;
• they are always moved from to do to in progress through a workflow
• the license you need to use a product is granted through product access
• access to projects is / can be granted to users by assigning them tp project roles

If you look at the specifics of each product, you could look at them this way:

• Jira Software is built primarily for software teams. It comes with scrum and kanban boards with a backlog, has specific reports for measuring velocity, lead times etc, has integrated release functionality and integrates with developer tools.
• Jira Service Management targets IT teams. It comes with a customer portal that acts as a simplified and focused for (even unlicensed) customers to create tickets and interact with a service team. For the service team, it also has SLA tracking, queues to help track tickets, a basic customer satisfaction tracking and dedicated reporting as well.
• Jira Work Management targets business teams (marketing, legal, HR, ...) with a simplified system for task and project management. Until recently, this was really basic functionality, but currently some very nice new features are being rolled out like a to do list with inline editing, a calendar view and an easy way to design forms.

Due to the common platform underneath, it is indeed possible to connect different teams throughout your organisation. Issues can be linked (cross project and cross product) to create visibility. Through automation you can also set up linked workflows and processes. A common example would be where the service desk sees a ticket come in and realises there is a bug in a piece of software causing the issue. Instead of pulling the software team into the ticket, they create a linked bug ticket in the project of the software team. When then bug is fixed and closed through the workflow, the service desk ticket can be closed automatically as well.

So each team can benefit of a set of features specific to their job at hand, but work can flow and be tracked throughout your entire organisation as well.

Jira align is then something on top of that. This is the place where strategy meets the work that relates to it. It is the place where you define your higher level organisational goals and connect optionally to the related work in Jira. It will relate more to Jira Software, as Jira Service Management is targeted at incident / service / problem management. And those things are more reactive by nature.

[Capi [resolution]]

@Ben WernerI suggest you stay tuned to the upcoming release of Jira Work Management, which seams like will have important capabilities to align cross-functional teams. Finally, there will be a native calendar in Jira... just my two cents.

[Ben Werner]

@Walter Buggenhout 

Thank you Walter - this gives me a good understanding vis-à-vis my question, and some idea of how I might onboard cross-functionally as things progress.

Much appreciated! 

[Ben Werner]

@Capi [resolution] 

What is the best way for me to stay tuned to the upcoming Jira Work Management release? Thanks! 

[Walter Buggenhout]

Have a look at https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/work-management, @Ben Werner! 

[Ben Werner]

Thanks Walter - this gives me a sense of how Jira Work Management works.

And brings up another question: what is a high-level compare/contrast between Work Management and Confluence, for the purpose of integrating non-technical teams into product development/support, and overall work flow process? Thanks again for your guidance...

[Walter Buggenhout]

Haha, this is turning into a thread to get to know the entire Atlassian stack in 3 or 4 questions :-)

You can best see Confluence as a feature rich wiki, where Jira (Work Management) is more about tracking work (tasks and projects) through a workflow process. Confluence is the place for content: documentation, ideation, collaboration around content, knowledge base articles for JSM, meeting notes, ... Jira is where you create your tasks, track their status and report on progress.

And yes, you can link Confluence pages to Jira issues and vice versa to get the most out of both, together. 

[Ben Werner]

Haha - I suppose my invitation for "philosophical advice" gave this thread a big frame ;)

That distinction between Confluence and Jira-X makes total sense, and will certainly help me decide what to employ as I continue working to improve our engineering and crossfunctional collaboration and workflow. 

Thanks again, Walter!