Jira is confusing.
Sujith Kattathara Bhaskaran
Using AI to evolve Project & Program management.
#ProjectManagement #ProductManagement #Agile #Jira #ITProjects
Introduction
Jira is a world leader in the space of Tools enabling IT Software Development.
G2 Crowd has identified Jira as a Leader in IT Product Management, while Capterra and GetApp have identified Jira as a Leader in Project Management. Gartner has categorized Atlassian as a Leader in Agile Planning.
So what offerings does Jira actually bring to the table?
I personally believe Jira is more of a Software Development tool enabling parts of Product Management & Project Management.
Here's my reasoning - and parts of it is going to be theoretical, and a little dry!
I will take the story back to more ground-level, practical aspects as soon as I can.
References
Key Knowledge areas in Project Management
Here's the first theoretic & dry part: As per PMI's PMBOK Guide, Project management is broken down into the following Knowledge areas:
- Project Integration Management,
- Project Scope Management,
- Project Time Management,
- Project Cost Management,
- Project Quality Management,
- Project Human Resource Management,
- Project Communications Management,
- Project Procurement Management, and
- Project Stakeholder Management.
Jira covers parts of Scope management, Quality management, Quality management, and Human resources management, and does not have any coverage on any of the other Knowledge areas.
There are also Jira Add-ons that can support aspects of Cost management & Procurement management.
But clearly, Jira is not an end-to-end Project Management tool.
References
Key areas in Product Management
The next theoretic & dry part: As per ProductHQ's Product Management certification guide, the Product Manager's responsibilities include:
- Customer Research,
- Product Strategy & Roadmap development,
- Product development, and
- post-launch, Analyzing Customer & Market data.
Jira supports Product scoping (which is part of Product Roadmap) and Product development, but does not support the other Product Manager activities.
Clearly, Jira is also not a full-fledged Product Management tool either.
References
领英推荐
Major reasons for IT Project failures
The other perspective to look at the efficacy of any Tool, is how it enables structure of processes and predictability of value.
In my opinion, the biggest value driven by any Tool will be how it prevents or contains Project failures, which can manifest in a combination of the following ways:
- Fail to deliver the planned Project objectives/ goals with the right quality expected (Scope management)
- Fail to complete the project delivery within committed timelines (schedule management), and
- Fail to complete the project execution within committed budgets (cost management).
The 3 aspects above are called the Triple constraints of Project management.
I read Kareem Shaker's article on Project Failures (referred below) on PM Network by pmi.org.
Kareem has identified the following major reasons for Projects' failure:
1. Poor alignment with the Organization's vision (Leading to the lack of Executive Support)
2. Bad planning
3. Lack of Executive support
4. Incomplete Requirements
5. Unclear Expectations
6. Scope creep
7. Lack of resources
8. Choice of Technology & Team capability on selected Technology
9. Lack of experience/ skills.
If we explore Jira's ability to address & handle these possible root causes of failure, the following aspects seem to be handled reasonably effectively by Jira:
4. Incomplete Requirements
5. Unclear Expectations
6. Scope creep
However, other Root causes of failures in projects are not effectively handled by Jira.
References
Conclusion
Jira can be positioned in any organization as just one of the Tools for Software development, but it has to be combined with other tools to address major feature gaps, such as:
- Resource planning
- Procurement: Bids to Contracts
- Scope traceability
- Integration management & cross-project dependency management
- Risk management & connecting to Project Requirements
- Financial management
- Project team Performance management
- Governance at Project Team level, Mid management level, and Executive level
- Dispute management
Existing Jira Add-ons do not address these requirements effectively, leading to gaps in features.
I shall be covering the specific gaps & most effective Use cases of Jira in more detail, in an upcoming article. The entire series shall be published over a few weeks' time.
Using AI to evolve Project & Program management.
1 年Sunil Balakrishnan This is the kick-off of a series of articles that I am writing about Jira, its Pros & Cons, Key gaps, etc. Please do check it out, specifically from the context of our discussion today.
Business Development Leader | Empowering Healthcare Providers to excel in Value-Based Care
1 年Another important type of solution that you require is to help you track your project time at task level, and help you answer these questions. What is your project profitability? Is there a revenue leakage and how to slash it? What are my resource utilization levels? What are the billable vs nonbillable hours? How can I reduce my project overrun rate? Everything can be tracked in one place using a simple SaaS solution today, and this can work hand in hand with your existing project management tool. Vivek Katheriya ??Sushmitha M
Global CXO | 4x Startup Founder| Strategic Growth Architect | Sales & Revenue Acceleration Expert | Scaling ARR to $ 120M+ | Ex-Cisco, IBM/PwC, AT&T | B2B FinTech | Global Fortune 1000
1 年Having navigated the realms of Azure DevOps and JIRA, it's crucial to address the nuanced needs of diverse Remote project delivery models in the the freelancer economy and remote smaller teams . While JIRA excels in stability and long-term employment scenarios, it may not be the optimal choice for contract-based projects. # One notable shortcoming is the absence of Contract-Scope-Value Traceability in JIRA, a critical element in project management for contract-driven endeavors. Efficiently tracking and managing project elements within the context of contractual obligations is pivotal, and this is where JIRA falls short. # Adaptability Matters: JIRA may be tailored for stable, long-term roles, but it might not be the most suitable tool when you're out-tasking specific project components . Why allocate 80% of your effort and time to a platform that's designed for scenarios where only 20% of the value resides?
Experienced project manager, writer, & editor with a passion for tech, wellness, & people. Follow along for industry news, work hacks, & even the occasional puppy pics!
1 年I definitely agree that Jira is designed to work best when positioned alongside other tools. What I wish more people knew is that Jira becomes much more effective at bridging the gap between technical and nontechnical users when it’s used alongside other Jira products - such as Work Management, Confluence, or even Trello (much more approachable for new users). I think the issue here is a lot of nontechnical teams stumble into finding Jira and are intimidated by the features that frankly aren’t made for them. Research is ??.