There is no one-size-fits-all answer for how big a Jira project should be; the ideal size is determined by your team structure, processes, and project scope, rather than a specific number of issues or users. Atlassian provides technical guidelines for system performance, but the project structure is a matter of best practice for usability and flexibility.
There are different perspectives on how big a project scope should be. A project with around 3 outcomes and 3 products may be considered as enough. When a project has too many outcomes and end products (e.g. around 5 or more), it is suggested to conduct a review to separate the project into different projects.
No, Jira isn't going away entirely, but Atlassian is ending support for its on-premises Data Center products, forcing users to migrate to the cloud or find alternatives by March 28, 2029, when Data Center becomes read-only. The company is shifting its focus entirely to its cloud platform, promising faster innovation and AI features for cloud users, while on-premise users must plan migration to avoid disruption.
We use scrum and kanban boards to represent agile teams in Jira Datacenter. Each agile team has at 1 board for their work. There are multiple team's in a single project. Each of these teams has their own board.
The Jira hierarchy includes epics, features, stories, and dependent and interrelated tasks. Essentially, epics are the highest level of the parental structure, followed by features, then bug, task, and story issues.
Jira's issue hierarchy organizes work into different levels—such as Epics, Stories, and Sub-tasks—providing teams with a clear structure to manage tasks from start to finish. This setup allows teams to break down larger projects into manageable parts, helping track progress and streamline collaboration.
By default, Jira is set up with 3 levels of work type hierarchy: Epic (level 1), Story (level 0) and Sub-Task (level -1). You can modify these levels to better reflect how your teams work.
The 6 core principles of Kanban focus on improving workflow by making work visible, limiting work in progress (WIP), managing flow, defining explicit policies, using feedback loops, and encouraging collaborative improvement. These principles guide teams to start with their current processes, respect existing roles, and evolve incrementally, aiming to reduce bottlenecks and boost efficiency through continuous, data-driven adjustments.
Spaces in Jira will either be a “team-managed” or “company-managed” space type. The fundamental difference between the two space types is how they are administered – that is, whether the space is managed at the team level or at a company/Jira administrator level.
Competitors and Alternatives to Jira
NASA streamlines the process by providing a dedicated space in Jira for meeting preparation, execution, and follow-up. Team members can asynchronously answer stand-up questions or add talking points before the meeting, ensuring everyone comes prepared.
Jira's flexibility and depth come with a steep learning curve and significant administrative overhead, as teams must master complex configurations and dedicate resources to ongoing maintenance.
No more than five projects per time horizon.
It helps you prioritize on the front end because it constrains your choices. It helps you focus on the important projects because it's a manageable number of projects that you can remember off the top of your head.
By completing 70% of the project value within the first 30% of the project duration, project managers can enjoy lower interest expenses, improved cash flow, better control, and increased stakeholder confidence. Furthermore, this rule serves as an effective risk mitigation tool.
Without good project management, crossing the finish line might seem impossible. So, what is the 90/10 rule? In simple terms, it's the concept that 90% of the work needed to finish your project will take a mere 10% of the time.
An alert created by a Jira Service Management integration has a level of importance, which is defined as its priority level. An alert may have one of the five different types of priority levels: P1, P2, P3, P4, and P5 where P1 indicates the highest priority and P5 is the least. You can set the priority manually.
Natively, Jira is a powerful tool that both the PMO and Project Managers utilize, they often leverage its features in slightly different ways to achieve their respective goals.
A bug is a problem which impairs or prevents the functions of a product. A user story is the smallest unit of work that needs to be done. A task represents work that needs to be done.
The Scrum Framework is simple, and it follows the 3-5-3 structure: 3 Roles, 5 events, 3 Artifacts. These elements are crucial to the success of doing Scrum and nothing is optional. Disregarding even a single aspect of this structure means you are not implementing Scrum.
Kanban is an Agile management process that focuses on visualization, workflow, and limiting work in progress. The concept emerged directly from the TPS, in which the term kanban (or “signboard”) refers to tags on products and materials.
Kanban, meaning "visual card" or "sign," uses a board with cards to track work items through different stages of a delivery system. Kaizen, meaning "change for the good," is a philosophy focused on continuous improvement through small incremental changes.
Structure for Jira Core Features
Jira offers two boards with unique features that make it easy for teams to start practicing agile methodologies and track their work.
A project key format is defined via a regular expression 'rule' that governs the valid project key format. By default, the Jira project key configuration requires two or more uppercase alphabetical characters — based on the regular expression ( [A-Z][A-Z]+ ).