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Sr Project Manager at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Real User
Oct 12, 2021
Streamlines the process of managing our projects, brings transparency, and is lightweight and easy to use
Pros and Cons
  • "Overall, it is very intuitive. It is so lightweight and easy to use. It is easy to manage our product backlog and user stories, and it produces great reports."
  • "It is not capturing the number of hours for which each person has worked on certain things. We use many add-ons to let resources enter the time in the user story itself. We use an add-on called Tempo, but it is kind of a lousy add-on. It is not straightforward. Rather than helping us, it creates a lot of confusion. So, instead of looking out for the additional add-on, I would prefer to have the timesheet entered as a part of Jira itself. They are anyways capturing every information they could for each user story, and then we are able to break down all the task lists. For each task, we're also assigning a resource. So, while we're doing it, why can't they allow the users to enter the time that can be created as a report? Right now, we need to acquire the add-on, and the add-on is not great. It is not helping. The add-on is also not free."

What is our primary use case?

I use it to manage my scrum projects and some of the Kanban projects.

In terms of version, they have been updating it every three weeks. It is a kind of a sprint that they do, just like Google Chrome. So, there is no going back and forth. We use a cloud-based application. So, it is always the updated one.

The type of cloud depends on the client. I've been through all kinds of situations: completely public, semi-public, and private. If it is a public cloud, then it is directly from Atlassian. They are providing it. So, there is no middleware.

How has it helped my organization?

It definitely streamlined the process of managing the projects. Earlier, we had a system scattered all over the place. We had information in Excel, Microsoft Project, and some of the other applications that we have, but now, we have everything in Jira itself. So, we create user stories and groom the product backlog. We have kept everything in Jira. It is our single source for project information that anyone can go to. So, we could see a lot of transparency with Jira.

What is most valuable?

Overall, it is very intuitive. It is so lightweight and easy to use. It is easy to manage our product backlog and user stories, and it produces great reports.

What needs improvement?

It is good for single projects, but if you have to manage the portfolio level of the projects, they have a few add-ons that we need to buy and integrate. They can improve this part to manage it in a better way.

It is not capturing the number of hours for which each person has worked on certain things. We use many add-ons to let resources enter the time in the user story itself. We use an add-on called Tempo, but it is kind of a lousy add-on. It is not straightforward. Rather than helping us, it creates a lot of confusion. So, instead of looking out for the additional add-on, I would prefer to have the timesheet entered as a part of Jira itself. They are anyways capturing every information they could for each user story, and then we are able to break down all the task lists. For each task, we're also assigning a resource. So, while we're doing it, why can't they allow the users to enter the time that can be created as a report? Right now, we need to acquire the add-on, and the add-on is not great. It is not helping. The add-on is also not free.

There could also be some additional reports.

Buyer's Guide
Jira
January 2026
Learn what your peers think about Jira. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2026.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Jira for seven to eight years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Stability-wise, it is very good. It is very lightweight. I have used other enterprise-level products to manage the same kind of scrum and Kanban projects and other projects. Other products have many enterprise-level features, but they're very slow and kind of hard to manage.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is a cloud-based one, so I don't see much difficulty in scaling it. If you want to go from 100 users to 200 users, you will be able to do it without much hassle.

I've been doing a lot of consulting. So, I've seen from five users to the entire organization with more than 500 people using it.

How are customer service and support?

I did contact them through email and discussion forums. I had a limited opportunity to work with them. So, I don't know much about their support.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Jira is a kind of the last one I settled on. Before that, I have used products such as Rally and VersionOne. These two are enterprise-level scrum and Kanban tools that are similar to Jira. 

I have also used Asana and Trello. Trello is lightweight, but I wouldn't call it equivalent to Jira. Jira has many features that not many solutions have. 

How was the initial setup?

Most of the time, we are working with the cloud-based one. So, we don't have to set up everything. It is all there. You just buy a monthly subscription package. The workflow configuration, however, would be a bit difficult while you're trying to set it up. In addition, if you have to go down to the permission level, it is a bit different.

What other advice do I have?

Workflow-wise, you need to plan well because once you configure it, you cannot often change a workflow. For each project, the workflow might be different. You might have a development team, a QA team, a configuration team, and a deployment team. When you start a task, you just need to make sure you are covering everyone. In terms of the workflow, you should know what would happen if someone is not there, and what are you going to do. So, you need to make sure that you are covering those things. Other than that, you need to know how much you are going to take care of the hierarchical level permissions. These are two primary things, and then, later on, you can relabel quite a lot of things in terms of how you're using the backlog product and user stories.

I would rate Jira an eight out of 10.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1690113 - PeerSpot reviewer
Product Engineering & Operations Director at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Oct 10, 2021
Dynamic and easy to use but needs better API integration
Pros and Cons
  • "In terms of the general way that the tool functions, it seems like it's a pretty good fit-for-purpose for what we're trying to do. We've never thought about replacing it with another technology."
  • "We're doing PI planning, Program Increment planning, and that kind of stuff, and it's not always a good facilitator for that. We tend to pull it out and put it into other tools to manage that, and then we get it back into Jira as that's our system of record for where all the stories are kept. That's probably the biggest headache with it."

What is our primary use case?

It's pretty much for engineering development, Scaled Agile purposes for engineering development, for managing basically the epics and the stories and the capabilities and everything that we have to deliver in sprints. We're not using it as a ticketing tool or anything like that, for operations. We're using it purely for managing the development stuff in a Scaled Agile manner.

What is most valuable?

The solution is easy to use. It's pretty dynamic. It allows us to basically handle everything that we need in terms of a backlog, and we're trying to do it in an organized manner, so we know who works on what and how to size the story points so we can ensure that our epics burn down from sprint to sprint.

In terms of the general way that the tool functions, it seems like it's a pretty good fit-for-purpose for what we're trying to do. We've never thought about replacing it with another technology. 

The initial setup is pretty straightforward. 

The stability is pretty good.

What needs improvement?

There are a few things about it that I think need to be improved in terms of the ability to build reports. We would like to be able to use the data from Jira to help drive Gantt chart roadmap-type views of not only what we're building, but rather where we're going.

What we've elected to do in a couple of cases is just pull the data out of Jira and then pull it into Power BI so that we can try to get some of the more sophisticated information that we want out of it. We actually experimented with building portfolio views so we can see stuff in real-time. In some ways, it's okay. In some ways, it's just a little lethargic for our purposes.

We'd like to be able to manage things in real-time and by looking at stuff. We're doing PI planning, Program Increment planning, and that kind of stuff, and it's not always a good facilitator for that. We tend to pull it out and put it into other tools to manage that, and then we get it back into Jira as that's our system of record for where all the stories are kept. That's probably the biggest headache with it.

For some of the portfolio stuff that we did, the queries were so complicated that it was just taking forever. It was like watching paint dry for the results to come back. We would be in a meeting and then we'd hit a refresh and you're waiting for what seems like an eternity.

The solution could use API integration to take feeds from other tools so that we can read them better. We got one camp using an ITBM tool from ServiceNow. We have Jira running in this other area, and having an API between the two so we could actually collaborate between the two tools. However, API integrations with other tools would be helpful so we could either take data out of it or put data in it, thereby making it more of a data-driven platform that integrates nicer with other platforms. That, I think, would be something I would like to see.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for four years or so. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I haven't heard people really complain that it's unstable. We haven't had very many performance issues with it. I don't know if it was a network problem or what it might have been, however, I haven't really heard people talk about performance problems other than when we were trying to use it for portfolio views and that got kind of weird as queries were just complicated. Beyond that, the stability has been fine.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The issues that we have with scalability aren't necessarily with the tool as much as it's how we're using it. We're a big company so there are a lot of people using Jira, however, we don't really see how the projects correlate across different activities within the company. When we're trying to get two integrated roadmaps and trying to get to a point where we're collaborating, doing inter-sourcing of a solution, and we're all in Jira, there are times where we're in it and yet we can't collaborate and work together, and so we start replicating things across the two projects.

I don't know how much of that is the issue with using it how we are versus the product itself though. 

We have 8,000 to 10,000 people using the solution currently. That's across many departments. We are a company of around 150,000 people. There may be people using it that I am not even aware of. I only have visibility of what I'm doing and what I'm exposed to in terms of integration with offerings and that kind of stuff. I know when we were managing licenses, we used to have a DevCloud team. For their scope, it was in the 8,000 to 10,000 user range. 

The solution is being pretty extensively used. Likely usage will grow as the company grows and takes on new business. I don't know if it's going to organically grow exponentially as it's already being used where it needs to be used and currently we're only using it for development activities across the different offerings and platforms. It's not used as a day-to-day run-and-maintain ticketing system to manage customers or issues or anything like that. I'm sure there'll be some incremental growth as we take on new business and grow as an organization.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We use Jira. We use Confluence as an extension of that, and then we also use ServiceNow, the ITBM capabilities of ServiceNow as well.

How was the initial setup?

We had a DevOps team that ran our cloud environment, and they basically spun up a project for us, and it was pretty straightforward. It's not like we were installing it in the cloud. People just said, "Here you go, and you can just start using it." After that, we just created a project for what we were doing, and then we were on our way. I wasn't really involved with any part that was problematic or anything.

In terms of maintenance, pretty much everybody is maintaining their own instance. We've got somebody that manages what's in the cloud for the company, however, it's pretty much hands-off in terms of day-to-day support issues. We had a few people that were supporting it when there were problems, however, it's just a handful from what I understand.

What other advice do I have?

We're just customers and end-users.

We are likely using the latest version of the solution. I don't know what the latest version of Jira is, however, I'm pretty confident we are.

The advice I would give is it's not a solution for a novice person that doesn't know Scaled Agile. Users will get out of it what they put into it, and if you don't know what you're doing you could set yourself up for a nightmare when you're using the tool. My advice is that the better you structure yourself and understand Scaled Agile and how you want to set up the project the more successful you'll be at using it for your organization's purposes. If you're going in there as a novice that doesn't understand anything about Scaled Agile you could create a mess for yourself and then it won't give you the value you are seeking.

I'd rate the solution at a seven out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Jira
January 2026
Learn what your peers think about Jira. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2026.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.
reviewer1675329 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at a government with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Oct 6, 2021
Easy to use and easy to onboard, but needs better documentation and better integration with other tools
Pros and Cons
  • "It was easy to use. The consultants that we had on board were familiar with it. So, obviously, having a community that had used it before or was familiar with it was a positive thing."
  • "If I'm comparing it to ALM Octane, the documentation is not as robust as ALM Octane's documentation. So, they can improve on the documentation side."

What is our primary use case?

We had a regulatory requirement through our legislature to collect motor or voter information for residents of California. So, if you basically wanted to sign up to vote, you could do so at a department of motor vehicles. The Jira instance was used for what we call the new motor voter, which is the online premise to register to vote when you conducted a DMV transaction, such as vehicle registration, driver's license, renewal, etc.

We had its latest version. It is online. In the cloud, we set up an account for the department, and then add users as needed. It is a government cloud.

How has it helped my organization?

It documented our business requirements.

What is most valuable?

It was easy to use. The consultants that we had on board were familiar with it. So, obviously, having a community that had used it before or was familiar with it was a positive thing.

What needs improvement?

If I'm comparing it to ALM Octane, the documentation is not as robust as ALM Octane's documentation. So, they can improve on the documentation side.

Another enhancement could be in the area of interfacing with other products or connectivity. It could have better integration with other tools.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using it since 2017. It has been about five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Its stability is good. There are no issues with the performance.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Its scalability is fine. At the peak, we had about 15 users, and towards the end, we had five users.

Our usage was not extensive. We used it only for one project, which was the motor voter project. We don't have any plans to increase the usage. We have stopped paying the subscription fee from the last month because we migrated everything over to ALM Octane for our business requirements.

How are customer service and support?

We didn't need to call them at all.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We were using IBM DOORS Next Generation for business requirements. It was on-premises, and we weren't able to make it available through a URL to the external consultant or workforce. That's why we basically went with Jira. IBM DOORS Next Generation wasn't flexible enough to accommodate all of our remote workforce.

How was the initial setup?

It was straightforward and easy. You basically create an account for your department, and then you onboard your users. There is a subscription fee per user for each month through Confluence. 

It took us a week to get it up and running. It involved reading, studying it, figuring it out, and then doing it. It was pretty simple to set up data and add users. So, we onboarded it within a week.

The challenge for us while setting it up was that we had to put it on a credit card, which is not a good thing for the government. Typically, the government likes to pay through a purchase order or procurement process, but because it was a monthly subscription fee, it had to be on a credit card. We had to use an executive card in order for us to pay the bill every month, which was really kind of a pain because our accounting office always had to make sure and check the number of users. They would ask if I had 15 users this month. I am the administrator of the application, so, of course, I know how many users are there. I can see how many users are there and how many are using it and remove them if they don't. I think the state just needs to modify its procurement process because I think ours is pretty old school. I don't think that Atlassian needs to adapt to ours, but that was the only challenge we had in setting it up and configuring.

What about the implementation team?

We had an in-house as well as a procured consultant, but he was through the state, not directly with Jira or Confluence.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The ballpark figure is about $100 a month.

What other advice do I have?

It is easy to use and easy to onboard. It has got a good foundation of offerings for the business requirements if you're working on an agile project or user stories.

I would rate Jira a seven out of 10.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Other
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Information Technology Program Manager at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
Real User
Sep 14, 2021
A very comprehensive, flexible product; premium version offers great advanced planning features
Pros and Cons
  • "A very comprehensive product; easy to set up and is very user-friendly."
  • "Lacks field-level permission in the cloud version."

What is our primary use case?

I personally use Jira for project management and agile software development. I'm an information technology program manager and we are customers of Jira. 

How has it helped my organization?

We're a software development company and Jira is an essential element of our daily work. We wouldn't be able to function without it. 

What is most valuable?

Jira is a very comprehensive and flexible product. It's easy to set up, easy to learn, and is very user-friendly. If you're using the cloud version from Atlassian, there are no issues with maintenance or performance. I especially like the advanced planning features in the premium version and there are plenty of apps available if any functionality is missing.

What needs improvement?

The only complaint I have about Jira is that there is no field-level permission for the issues in the Jira cloud version. You can get an app for the server version, but the cloud version doesn't allow that type of functionality. For example, I write a user story that goes to the customer for approval. Once approved, I would want to be able to lock the description for that user story so it can't be changed, but I'm unable to do that. I can lock the whole story but not the description alone. It creates a problem because when I need to add the story to a sprint, I need to change the sprint number field. It can't be done because the whole issue is locked or lacks the properties to be edited.  

The other thing missing is a straight connection to the pipelines and the source control. I think it should be integrated with GitHub and other products that developers use. It's the lack of integration that's the main reason we are considering moving to Azure DevOps.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using this solution for several years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I haven't had a single issue with Jira.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Jira is easily scalable to any level you want. Our company has 60 to 70 users working on multiple projects and we have a second installation specifically for one of our customers which has around 25 users. The users in our company have traditional roles; developers, business analysts, QA engineers, project managers and customers. We're using it constantly. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Jira has a two-tier pricing system; a basic level and a premium level, which I think could be broken down a little more, but the pricing and billing are reasonable. You can add or remove users and they bill you dynamically month to month based on the number of users. It would be nice to have tiered pricing based on user numbers because, for large companies with hundreds of users, it's going to become expensive really quickly. It's acceptable for us and we have what we need.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We are considering switching to DevOps and are currently carrying out an evaluation. The main reason is that our offshore team uses DevOps for everything. We started with Jira so they had to use it for us, but we're hearing that DevOps is better integrated with source control and releases, so it's something we're considering now. 

I've had a look at the pricing of DevOps and it's really strange. Basic pricing is $6 per user per month or if you want to include test plans it jumps to $52 per user per month, which is an astronomical jump. I'm not sure whether it's $52 for every single user on the system. Jira charges $7 per user, per month for the basic version or $14 per user, per month for the premium one.

What other advice do I have?

The product is very useful. As a program manager, I recommend it wholeheartedly. The cloud version is easy to set up, and there's no maintenance required. I haven't incurred any issues with performance or updates being applied incorrectly or any bugs. 

I rate the solution nine out of 10. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Senior Principal Engineer at a consultancy with 1-10 employees
Real User
Jun 16, 2021
A great centralized tool that has a good agile framework and is useful for day-to-day planning, task management, and work log efficacy
Pros and Cons
  • "The agile framework works well, and I pretty much live by that. Everything, such as sprint management, is laid out."
  • "From a very software-centric or a lead developer standpoint, there should be the ability to work at multiple levels. You have epic stories and use cases or epic stories and tasks. It would be nice to be able to have multiple levels of stories and multiple levels of epics work with it. It's lacking a little bit there, and this is the big thing for me because it makes it difficult to do a real sprint when you're limited to one story per epic. It's really hard to isolate tasks at multiple levels to match the type of use cases you normally do. That's the biggest difficulty. Other than that, they've been improving year to year, and every version seems to have a level of improvement."

What is our primary use case?

We have different software projects. I primarily use Jira to define and plan projects for agile-based project management. We use different aspects. We have scrum-based management for some projects and different systems for others.

What is most valuable?

The agile framework works well, and I pretty much live by that. Everything, such as sprint management, is laid out.

It is easy to use and implement. It provides me with pretty much everything that I need to be able to do day-to-day planning, task management, and work log efficacy.

It is a great centralized tool for everything. You can use it for your local team management to communicate with your developers. You can also use it for your management team and for communicating with subcontractors to keep track of work products, work logs, and perform at the minute status.

What needs improvement?

For how I identify tasks and break down use cases, I wish there was the ability to drill down Stories multiple levels deep. You have Epics, Stories, Tasks and Sub-tasks. Each of which can go one level deep. It would be nice to be able to be able to define Stories multiple levels deep in order to break down super complex use-cases. That is my only pet peeve. Other than that, they've been improving year to year, and each new version seems to have increased levels of improvement.

I use another product that synchronizes well with Jira called Worklog Assistant, by Sohail Somani, which runs separately to Jira. It is a great product that allows you easily keep track of work performed and generate all respective Jira worklogs at the press of a button. I've been using it for years, and it just makes it very easy for me to keep track of what I am doing with an accurate time tracking mechanism. I think this would be a nice tool to integrated with Atlassian Jira.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using it since 2008.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is pretty stable. They've improved things over the years. Back in 2008, when we were starting to use it, different issues used to come up from time to time. It was still relatively stable. Now, I rarely run into a problem for which I can say that it is a problem with the tool, as opposed to user error.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is pretty scalable. I was actually kind of surprised at how much data I can put in. It doesn't slow the tool down. It is quite scalable, and it worked well for the projects that we've done.

We're a small company. I can't compare myself to IBM or Raytheon. I can talk for a small company with up to 45 employees with X number of projects. Because of COVID, we've had to pare down, and currently, we have two users who are using it. I myself use it on a regular basis. Four or five years ago, we had subcontractors who used it with us. At that time, we had seven or eight users, including clients and subcontractors.

It is being extensively used at the moment. The only increase in usage would be to include other individuals on it.

How are customer service and support?

We used their support early on, and they were helpful. At that time, we were using the enterprise product, which was a purchased product. So, as a paying customer, you got straight-up support. They were good. There were some bugs and issues early on that were difficult to get through, but they worked them out. Now, we have fewer people, so we use the one to 10 person option, and I haven't had any reason to call support. I haven't had a need to use their support in years.

They self-use their product for defect management. You can always go to their website and find what's going on. They have forums, et cetera.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

In the previous company that I've worked for, I've used Bugzilla for defect management. Task management was in-house, but I don't remember the tool that we used to do task management. For building up sprints, etc, we used a Wiki-based system. It probably was TWiki at the time. We had set up our own Wiki-based environments for doing management, et cetera. We also had Excel spreadsheets. I didn't know about Jira back then in the previous company.

We did some research when I started with this company, and we chose to use Atlassian. It wasn't just, "Oh, the company was using it." It was one of the things that I was part of instituting. We did what we call Decision Analysis and Resolution (DAR) to determine what was the best bang for the buck and what covered our needs, and then it evolved from there. After I started using Jira in this company, a lot of things were easy to do.

How was the initial setup?

Its setup is semi intuitive. There are certain things for which you need to look at the instructions. It also depends on how complex your environment settings are.

Initially, back in 2008, it was a little bit more difficult, but they've improved the installation process. If you have a very basic setup, you can just pretty much install it right out of the box with maybe one or two changes. There're certain things for which you need to have some IT knowledge of your environment in order to be able to set it up. Other than that, they have really automated it pretty well. Jira is one of their keystone products.

Its initial deployment took hours or maybe days because there were things that I needed to understand, but they've improved it a great deal. You can pretty much be up and running within an hour, but it also depends on your environment.

What about the implementation team?

Its implementation was an in-house job.

In terms of maintenance, I take care of its maintenance. Its maintenance is minimum, and only one person is required. You can easily run backups. We use Microsoft SQL Server for backend data management, and we automate the backups. We do daily backups, etc. If anything goes wrong with the tool we have, we can just rebuild it from scratch, and we will be fine because our data is there.

They also have built-in backup utilities that you can use. There is an XML-based one, which I do like to use from time to time just as an alternate. So, you do have different options.

What was our ROI?

We've seen a return on investment when it comes to Jira.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

For very small companies, if you have less than 10 individuals, it is $10 a year for each of the products. When we were a part of the enterprise and had more than 10 people using it, or before they came up with this solution for small companies, it was $2,500 a year for the license for Jira and Confluence, and I believe something like $600 a year to perpetuate the license. I can't remember if it was $600 or $2,500 annually. It was for up to 25 people at the time, and this was in the early 2000s and mid 2000s.

There are a number of add-on products that you can sync with Atlassian Jira. Confluence, FishEye, Crucible, and Bamboo are different Atlassian products, but then there are sub-products. They have what's called Atlassian marketplace, and you can buy products for certain needs. Tempo is a perfect product for doing time management and timesheets. It was also $10. So, you have a bunch of different types of add-on products that different individuals have built that work well with the tool, and they are quite stable.

What other advice do I have?

One piece of advice, which they also give in their documentation, is to use your own database management system. They give you something that you can use. It is called HSQL or something like that, but you can use what your company can afford, such as MySQL or SQL Server, and manage that yourself. It will help you to do better data management and backup management. I would use the built-in backup management system as a backup, although I haven't had any problems at all in years. Just for a warm fuzzy, it is always good to have a backup system.

I would recommend looking into primary tools depending on your needs. If you're doing software, FishEye and Crucible are great products to utilize with it. You also have Confluence and Bamboo for continuous build management. Tempo, of course, is good for certain types of management.

I would rate Jira a nine out of 10.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1407036 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior PM / Scrum Master at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
May 25, 2021
Stable and easy to learn with good customizations, useful burndown charts, and support for a query language
Pros and Cons
  • "It was very easy to learn Jira. As a scrum master, I run daily stand-ups, and they are run directly from Jira. The feature that I really love in Jira is called Issue Navigator. It allows me to customize how I want to show the user stories within Jira to my squad."
  • "I can use Jira Query Language (JQL) to write queries to see the stories that are there for the current sprint. I can also sort them by assignment. I also use Jira is for burndown charts, which give an indication of how efficiently the squad is performing. I also use the Active Sprints function and a feature called Planning Poker."
  • "One major issue that I, and even our business stakeholders, have noticed is related to Epic Link. When Epic Link's background color is a dark color, it effectively becomes unreadable. I wish there was a way for us to change the text color of Epic Link in the Issue Navigator view."
  • "There needs to be an easier way to capture a few metrics. I wish there was an easy way for Jira to explain to me what has been added after the sprint has been done. Currently, it is a bit difficult for me to tell. In addition, when rolling over stories from one sprint to another, it is kind of difficult for me to find out how many story points were actually rolled over without going into Jira and doing an analysis. I wish Jira would somehow aggregate that information for me so I can easily report about it."
  • "I also wish Jira had an indicator to tell you that you are approaching the limit for the story points that can be delivered during a sprint. I don't think there is an indicator like that, but such an indicator will be very helpful because then I will be easily able to see that we are approaching the limit."

What is our primary use case?

I work with a credit rating company in the US. As a scrum master and project manager, I have to make sure that all the impediments are removed for the team. I work with product owners to make sure that all initiatives requested by our stakeholders, who are mainly compliance and regulations people, are moving in a timely manner.

I use Jira to make sure that we are capturing all the work that is requested, and it is progressing in a timely manner. I am in charge of a squad called Core Operations Reporting. A squad is usually focused on one or two initiatives. The goal of our squad is to automate regulatory reports as much as possible. I talk to our stakeholders to ensure that any errors in credit ratings are dealt with in a timely manner. A lot of these requests are ad hoc, and we prioritize them in sprints in Jira. 

What is most valuable?

It was very easy to learn Jira. I can't explain how easy it was. The hardest part of my job is understanding the business and communicating with difficult stakeholders and difficult people on the squad who are resistant to change and agile methodology. The fact that Jira was so simple to understand was a huge boon in my book because I didn't have to waste time trying to learn the tool to get work done and move the squad along. It was very easy to understand.

As a scrum master, I run daily stand-ups, and they are run directly from Jira. During these stand-ups, to make sure that there are no impediments, I run through all of the open issues and action items that the team members have. The feature that I really love in Jira is called Issue Navigator. It allows me to customize how I want to show the user stories within Jira to my squad. 

I can use Jira Query Language (JQL) to write queries to see the stories that are there for the current sprint. I can also sort them by assignment. I am able to call each assignee and have them walk through the status of what they did yesterday, what do they plan to do for the next 24 hours, and if there are any blockers or impediments.

I also use Jira is for burndown charts. A burndown chart provides a visual depiction of how quickly the squad is closing out user stories. It gives us an indication of how efficiently the squad is performing. I also use the Active Sprints function and a feature called Planning Poker. Planning Poker is an add-on, and it allows me to work with my squad members to estimate the complexity of user stories. It allows me to estimate user stories in an unbiased way with my squad members. It is important that people are not piggybacking on other people's estimates, so when a business requests a functionality, I use Planning Poker to have people send me their estimates in an unbiased way. They cannot see what other people have estimated. This way, they have their own unbiased view on specific user-requested functionality and its worth. After that, we end up talking out like, "Why did you think it was a three? Why did the other person think it was a five?" So, it allows an unbiased way of estimating user stories.

What needs improvement?

One major issue that I, and even our business stakeholders, have noticed is related to Epic Link. In Issue Navigator view, Jira allows you to enter JQL, which is basically like SQL. You just enter a query, and it displays the stories that satisfy the query. There is a field called Epic Link, which is basically a high-level designation for a bunch of user stories with a common goal. Epic Link is typically of different colors. When Epic Link's background color is a dark color, it effectively becomes unreadable. I am looking at my screen right now, and there is an Epic Link called Click View User Request. The background is purple, and the text is black. It is almost impossible to read it unless you click on it or give it an extra minute of viewing. That's basically what needs improvement. I wish there was a way for us to change the text color of Epic Link in the Issue Navigator view.

I've been required to report on metrics, and I don't know if it is possible with Jira, but there needs to be an easier way to capture a few metrics. For a two-week sprint, we are required to report on a number of metrics such as committed, completed, added, and rolled over. There is a way to see the stories that have been added after the sprint has begun, but there is no easy way to aggregate this, which is a waste of time. I wish there was an easy way for Jira to explain to me what has been added after the sprint has been done. Currently, it is a bit difficult for me to tell.

In addition, when rolling over stories from one sprint to another, it is kind of difficult for me to find out how many story points were actually rolled over without going into Jira and doing an analysis. I wish Jira would somehow aggregate that information for me so I can easily report about it. There should be an automatic aggregation of how many story points were added after the sprint began and how many story points were rolled over to the subsequent sprint.

I also wish Jira had an indicator to tell you that you are approaching the limit for the story points that can be delivered during a sprint. Typically, there is an established capacity for each sprint. I take an average of all of the delivered story points from the past six sprints, and I use that number to estimate how many story points can the squad deliver. I wish there was an indicator in Jira that tells you that you are approaching the number of story points that can be delivered during the sprint. I don't think there is an indicator like that, but such an indicator will be very helpful because then I will be easily able to see that we are approaching the limit. I can then talk to the squad members and say, "Okay, we need to remove some story points from the sprint because we're reaching capacity."

For how long have I used the solution?

My experience with Jira is pretty extensive. I pretty much use Jira every single day and multiple times a day. When I'm not using Jira, I'm using Confluence. I also use SharePoint.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is 100% stable. Stability is also dependent on a lot of factors. Jira has been down once or twice, and people go crazy. In almost two and a half years that I've worked here, Jira was down only a handful of times, and I don't think that was Atlassian's fault. Atlassian is the company that is responsible for these tools. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I am not really aware of things in terms of expansion. However, there are some add-ons or extensions for expanding the functionality of Jira. The Planning Poker tool seems to be an add-on. Similarly, there is also another extension or plugin called Structure that was previously going to be leveraged. We haven't moved forward with that because we're using more of a manual solution in the metrics reporting. There is another add-on called Dataplane Reports. So, scalability is definitely there, and there are definitely opportunities to scale horizontally and expand the functionally of Jira through plugins and add-ons. 

In our organization, we only have 5,000 employees, and probably 70% of the company is using Jira. which includes the business as well. The business is also learning how to use it, and they understand that it is a very powerful tool. I would say about 3,500 out of 5,000 people are using Jira.

How are customer service and technical support?

I didn't have to contact Atlassian. We have an internal Jira support team that answers all our questions. I don't think they have contacted Jira support in a while.

How was the initial setup?

Its initial setup was not done by me.

What about the implementation team?

Its initial setup was done by Jira administrators.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I am not sure about the pricing, but I know its licensing is on a yearly basis.

What other advice do I have?

The main advice would be to just use it as much as possible and try to learn the basics of JQL, which is Jira's proprietary language that allows you to tell Jira exactly what you want to see. It is pretty self-explanatory and not hard to use. There are so many different fields in Jira such as issue type, key, sprint, summary, Epic Link, reporter, assigning, status, story points, and components. You can add the required columns to the Issue Navigator view, and it will spit back exactly what you wanted to see.

You should also learn what kind of value it can add to the organization before just jumping in. Try to talk to senior management and figure it out. You should learn how to read the burndown charts to basically understand how efficiently the team is working. Every organization has an IT organization, and I am sure the majority of them are using Jira.

I would rate Jira an eight out of ten. No tool is perfect, and there is obviously room for improvement.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
IT Project Manager at a healthcare company with 201-500 employees
Real User
Apr 23, 2021
Designed for project management, meets all IT software development needs, and integrates with Power BI
Pros and Cons
  • "The roadmap feature and the ability to integrate with Power BI are probably the most valuable features in it. It is a great solution. I absolutely love it. It is a tool that was designed for project management, and it has been awesome to work with it so far. I also love Confluence."
  • "They can maybe dumb down the directions for building the automation a little bit because to be able to build out the automation, I had to play around with it and learn what all the fields meant and what they were referencing. I don't have an IT background originally. My background is in biology, and I got into project management by chance. I am good at it, but I haven't really worked with coding languages. In terms of writing automation, it is easier for devs because they intuitively know what they're being asked, but as a PM who originally didn't have IT experience, it was a little bit daunting at first. It could also have an extra hierarchy to be able to allow tasks under stories. It could be the way it is set up at our organization, but currently, under stories, you can have sub-tasks, but you can't create a task. Being able to customize your hierarchy a little bit more would be beneficial because sometimes, the devs would say, "Well, here's a story, and now we need sub-tasks," but as we were building out the sub-tasks, sometimes we had to go a step lower to dig in a little bit more, and we couldn't do that."

What is our primary use case?

We used it in my previous organization for project management, product management, and release management. In my current organization, where I started working a week ago, we are using Jira strictly for help-desk tickets. We are using DevOps for our release management. So, we've got DevOps, Jira, and some homegrown stuff, and I'm trying to figure out what's going to work best for this new organization.

I've used Jira and Confluence previously, and this is my first time using the help-desk ticketing system. It is cool and not a whole lot different than SolarWinds or Zendesk, except the appearance of it is more Jira.

How has it helped my organization?

We were using Microsoft OneNote for systems engineering and network engineering. It was being used for our documentation, environments, and services, and it was a nightmare. We transitioned everybody and copied everything into Confluence. We were then able to tag specific tickets to the notes, and there were links between what work was recently done and the most updated notes in Confluence.

What is most valuable?

The roadmap feature and the ability to integrate with Power BI are probably the most valuable features in it. It is a great solution. I absolutely love it. It is a tool that was designed for project management, and it has been awesome to work with it so far. I also love Confluence.

What needs improvement?

They can maybe dumb down the directions for building the automation a little bit because to be able to build out the automation, I had to play around with it and learn what all the fields meant and what they were referencing. I don't have an IT background originally. My background is in biology, and I got into project management by chance. I am good at it, but I haven't really worked with coding languages. In terms of writing automation, it is easier for devs because they intuitively know what they're being asked, but as a PM who originally didn't have IT experience, it was a little bit daunting at first.

It could also have an extra hierarchy to be able to allow tasks under stories. It could be the way it is set up at our organization, but currently, under stories, you can have sub-tasks, but you can't create a task. Being able to customize your hierarchy a little bit more would be beneficial because sometimes, the devs would say, "Well, here's a story, and now we need sub-tasks," but as we were building out the sub-tasks, sometimes we had to go a step lower to dig in a little bit more, and we couldn't do that.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It has never gone down for me. It was always reliable, even from the mobile app.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It was fine. It seemed to integrate with all of our systems with ease. At my previous organization, there were probably 500 or 600 people using Jira. There were many different roles including product management, project management, VPs of IT and Ops, IT data services, developers, network engineers, systems engineers, and CBAs. It was a full scale of IT professionals.

At my current organization, where I started working a week ago, we are using Jira, but there are only a handful of people who are actually using it. It is strictly for help-desk tickets. I am trying to implement it and roll it out to the organization on a much larger scale, and I'm going to have to talk to them about pricing and other things. In this new organization, there are probably about 500 or 600 employees in total. Assuming I get the buy-in from everyone, which I don't think would be a problem, I would probably need at least a hundred licenses for users and then expand from there as needed.

How are customer service and technical support?

I haven't interacted with their technical support, but I bet they would have been awesome.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I have used Smartsheet, MS Project, and Trello. Jira is more software-development-specific and a much easier tool to use.

How was the initial setup?

In my previous organization, I believe its initial setup was complex. I was not at the administrative user level. I was given admin privileges for certain projects but not for the whole Jira. This is the first time I actually have admin privileges over all of Jira, and it was set up for me.

It probably took a few days. It would have also involved a lot of conversations and other stuff.

What about the implementation team?

It would have been in-house. In terms of maintenance, it didn't seem to need maintenance from our side.

What other advice do I have?

I would advise going with the entire Atlassian suite. Don't just use one aspect of Jira, unless you have a very specific need for using bits and pieces. Jira is better when Confluence and everything can be integrated, and you have source code management and all of that from the same software or platform.

I would rate Jira a ten out of ten. I love Jira. It has the ability to just do everything, and it is a one-stop shop for all of your IT software development needs.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Partner Account Manager at a tech vendor with 201-500 employees
Real User
Top 5
Nov 24, 2024
Enables me to monitor and track work in progress
Pros and Cons
  • "Jira is quite easy to use and very simple from my point of view."
  • "The user interface could be improved from a user experience standpoint."

What is our primary use case?

Jira is used primarily for ticketing, escalations, and tracking work in progress. It is also integrated with other tools within the company. Additionally, we open Jira to customers for ticketing purposes.

How has it helped my organization?

Jira is very useful and allows me to know who is in charge, who the owner is, and monitor and track work in progress.

What is most valuable?

Jira is quite easy to use and very simple from my point of view. It is very useful and direct and allows monitoring and tracking of work in progress. 

It integrates well with other tools in the company and is opened to the customer for ticketing. It is stable with no scalability issues experienced.

What needs improvement?

The user interface could be improved from a user experience standpoint. It needs to be more visually appealing and customizable to display key data effectively. 

There's room for improvement in the search tool, as it can be challenging to locate tickets directly.

For how long have I used the solution?

I am quite new to the company and joined one year ago, however, Jira has been used for several years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's stable. I have never experienced any trouble concerning scalability or heard from customers about issues related to performance or usability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Jira is stable, and I have not experienced any issues with scalability. Customers have not reported any problems related to this.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We use Teams officially at the company level, while the engineering team uses Slack.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We use Microsoft Copilot alongside Microsoft Office, integrating different AI engines according to customer choices.

What other advice do I have?

The user interface needs improvement in terms of visual appeal and customization. The search feature could also be enhanced for better efficiency. Rating the overall solution would be nine out of ten.

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Other
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Jira Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: January 2026
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Jira Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.