Finally, Jira 7 is here. So, what are the important things to know?
The most important change in Jira 7 is the creation of a new module of software called “Core”. This is a more basic intuitive version of Jira for non-technology users. In other words, all the software development features have been stripped from it. Atlassian now effectively have three classes of projects; Business, Service desk and Software. You can license each of the three independently or combinations of both. If you license Service Desk or Software though, Core comes as part of the bundle.
Here are four important things about this new release;
1 Project Management for all teams
2 Business Processes supported
3 Upgrade and leverage your Jira investment for all users
4 Its still a blank canvas – customization rules
1) Project Management for all teams
This is profound for many reasons. Although for the moment Core is very basic – it is directly aimed at new and large target markets. For instance the simple project management space inhabited by Microsoft, Basecamp, Asana, Wrike and similar have now a much more serious competitor that has simplified the user interface for non-technical users. Just to help things along Jira 7 has a friendly project importer with a range of targets already lined up nicely laid out by brand;
2) Business Process Support
Another suggested template for a project is “business process” which essentially harnesses a hidden strength of Jira; its fully configurable issue (item) type and workflow editor. This opens up a potentially massive and more lucrative market space; Workflow management. Currently Jira is very much simpler than more sophisticated tools (and massively more expensive ones) such as PEGA but with an install base already of 30,000 customers Jira could very much sneak up on this market simply because Atlassian turns on the switch. What must be concerning for competitors is that now that Core has become its own platform, innovation in terms of new features can start in earnest and remember, in the end Jira software is used to build better software!
3) Upgrade and leverage Jira Core for all your users
If you have a solid Jira/Atlassian toolchain in place, encouraging business users to use Jira Core makes sense because it’s a low cost way to leverage your Jira investment. You have the application and the server – just turn it on! Secondly business users can easily convert their issues/items to backlog in software projects. This can help speed up the innovation cycle between business ideas and IT implementation. The final reason is that Jira provides an unparalleled view of cross enterprise activity, provided its done consistently, across business units via filters and dashboard reporting.
Of course Atlassian also genuinely listens to customers and your voice counts in terms of feature requests. Expect soon to see for instance Kanban boards for business.
4) It’s still a blank canvas – Customization rules
Jira Core business projects are still a blank canvas out of the box in the sense that what makes them useful is practical “issue types”. In Jira, customization is not a dirty word because it’s the way the product is engineered. In previous posts we have discussed the use of standard issue types that support business processes – project management is in fact a process. Hence having a set of thought through issue types for projects makes more sense than ever. We have templates for instance such as “issue”, risk, deliverable, milestone, decision that are all very useful for project managers to track. They are all available in Jira Core and Jira 7 as a whole.
With the advent of business process support, interdepartmental requests could be of any nature:
- Legal requests
- Pricing
- Marketing support
- HR issues
- New ideas and innovation
- Regulatory issues
So don’t constrain yourself with simple issues such as tasks and sub tasks out of the box – harness the power of Jira Core for business for every team!
This is a Call to Action!
To take advantage of Jira 7 you need to upgrade your current version of Jira. We can help to advise you on this process as well as support the actual upgrade. In addition we have a menu list of different issue types and work flows that you can select, modify and implement in your application. Contact
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