Is Jira the best software for project management of software development projects? We definitely concur with these words! It facilitates teamwork, allows you to plan tasks, track your work, swiftly report and much, much more. In short, Jira helps in releasing high-quality software.
A few words about Jira
I think we need to start by emphasizing how great and complex Jira is, offering many opportunities for software development. If you used this tool at some point in the past, you certainly didn’t explore all the available features. In any case, Jira is widely used, primarily for Agile-based software development. We can safely say that it is the most popular solution for this type of projects.
Jira enables team organization, process monitoring, bug tracking, decision making, document verification and flow, task planning, resource sharing and much more. Importantly, the boards in Jira, where you primarily work, can be adjusted according to your needs. The creator of this tool is Atlassian and they offer three products closely related and compatible with the Jira platform:
- Jira Core – has very basic functions to manage teamwork.
- Jira Software – here you will find SCRUM, the KANBAN board and Agile reporting.
- Jira Service Desk – if you handle customer requests every day, the board is something for you. You will be able to measure and report work.
Jira for software development
The Jira Software Cloud provides tools that help your teams plan and create work schedules. This allows you to manage all participants, budgets and requirements. The tool is compatible with CI/CD. If the code is ready for implementation, information about the status of the production code is provided in the Jira application. Speaking of using Jira for software development, you’ll be able to:
- Plan releases.
- Plan your sprint.
- Create project task lists.
- Manage requests.
- Integrate the tool with CI / CD tools.
- Integrate the tool with the Jira Service Desk.
- Mark functions.
Advantages of Jira
If you’re thinking about implementing Jira into your teamwork, keep the following pros in mind:
- one system, countless functionalities,
- excellent tools, especially for complex teams,
- works great for software development projects,
- increases the speed and quality of the produced software,
- constantly developed and offering technical support,
- compatible with many extras,
- flexibility and endless possibilities of configuring boards,
- process automation.
Disadvantages of Jira
As I mentioned at the beginning of the article, Jira is not an ideal solution and may not always correspond with your needs. Therefore, you should take into consideration its cons as well:
- high costs (price depends on the team size),
- relatively difficult to use,
- prior knowledge on configuration and implementation of Jira is preferred,
- Jira is not always an ideal tool – especially for small teams.
Conclusions
Jira is a powerful tool and certainly a great solution. However, to use its full potential, you need at least basic knowledge of the product to discover the options that are most useful to you. From my perspective, the biggest advantage of this tool is the possibility of managing the project in accordance with Agile, using, for example, the Scrum methodology. In summary – is it worth trying out? Yes, definitely.
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