Programme Manager - Major Programmes Office at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
Good roadmaps and portfolio management with easy, transparent pricng
Pros and Cons
  • "Scaling the product wouldn't be difficult."
  • "We'd like to use it with non-Agile projects in the future, however, right now, it is a very Agile-focused product."

What is our primary use case?

We use it within our organization. 

It's to handle all the main technology projects. It's for managing mobile banking, internet banking, all the new products, and all technology-related projects.

How has it helped my organization?

We get the big picture of what is going on within a project.

The solution allows us to provide access also to the senior management, to see how things are progressing and to point out quickly what's going on, and help to focus energy on the things that are not going well.

What is most valuable?

The main benefit we got from the product is the consolidation. 

I like the roadmap or the new version with the roadmap that the solution offers. For us, the roadmap was a really great feature.

It's got very good portfolio management. 

The initial setup is easy.

The licensing is transparent. 

It's a stable solution.

Scaling the product wouldn't be difficult. 

Whether you are an expert in Agile or just it's the first time you are talking about it, it's a very user-friendly tool. It's a very simple tool. It's not complicated and even the integration and the usage is very simple. You don't need to be an expert. 

Whether you have small teams or big teams, it's the right tool.

What needs improvement?

We'd like to use it with non-Agile projects in the future, however, right now, it is a very Agile-focused product.

In general, however, as a solution, it's quite complete and I cannot speak to any missing features. 

Buyer's Guide
Jira
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about Jira. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
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For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for one year now. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

At the moment, we have not had any issues with stability. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

At this time, we are not tackling scaling at the moment. The organization is not mature enough to scale up.

That said, based on the experience we have had now, if we want to scale up, it should not be that difficult.

We have approximately 200 people on the solution currently. Those users are mainly comprised of the software development teams plus some portfolio managers and program managers and the project managers as well.

We do plan to increase usage in the future. 

How are customer service and support?

I have not had any interaction with them as we haven't had any major issues. We have a contract with the integrator, however. While everything is going well for the moment, we would have access to assistance if we needed it.

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

I've used Clarity, however, it was used in another organization.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was not complex at all. It was very straightforward, very simple.

The full deployment took about three months.

We have four people capable of handling any management tasks related to Jira. 

What about the implementation team?

We had the setup services handled by a reseller of Jira.

It was a very good experience. It was very fast compared to what we expected from the contract. It was a nice surprise.

What was our ROI?

We have yet to see an ROI as it's been just one year, including the three months of implementation. Maybe in the next six months, we can have visibility on that. For the moment, it's still in progress. We cannot say anything about any ROI.

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

We pay a yearly licensing fee for an enterprise-level license. 

It's quite similar to the pricing that they have on their website. It's quite transparent from their site. They have a package that charges per user, however, they have some scalable packages, for zero to 10 users, from 10 to 20, from 20 to 50, and so on. You can choose, depending on the size of your company or the number of users. The costs are quite transparent.

While everything is included in that package, the integration or the customization is a different fee. There's a project apart from the integrator, which may vary in cost.

What other advice do I have?

We are just customers and end-users.

I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten. There's always room for improvement, however, it's a very good solution.

I would recommend the solution to others.

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: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Senior Manager at Capgemini
Real User
Solid solution for agile, iterative, and incremental development
Pros and Cons
  • "The burndown chart is also helpful when it comes to reporting and allows us to know where we are going, especially during development."
  • "The initial setup was a bit problematic in terms of getting access to Jira. That goes for a few users, including me."

What is our primary use case?

My primary use case for Jira is agile development as a systems integrator. The best use case is to pile up the backlog and then assign those backlogs stories to the user stories, which will be filtered into a sprint. Each story is then assigned to a cross-functional team member for tracking the dependencies and progress on the user story. You can also tag the user story to a particular team.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature for me has been tagging. Also, there's the option to add task lists to each user story. In addition, user stories can be grouped into one feature, which allows us to visualize our progress. The burndown chart is also helpful when it comes to reporting and allows us to know where we are going, especially during development.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used Jira for a total of seven months. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Jira is a reliable solution. In fact, it is not only used for user stories. It is used as an issue tracker tool as well. So I think it supports multiple use cases, which is good.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Multiple users have logged into it at the same time without running into any issues. At my current organization, some 25 people use it. At my previous organization, about 40 people used it. We have plans to increase usage. 

How are customer service and support?

I have not had to call up their tech support. They have plenty of troubleshooting documentation online. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was a bit problematic in terms of getting access to Jira. That goes for a few users, including me.

What other advice do I have?

It is a good solution and a very popular one, as well. So I would recommend it if you are going for agile methodology. It works for both iterative and incremental development. You should use it. 

This is a solid solution for medium to large companies.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Jira
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about Jira. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
768,415 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Senior Systems Analyst at canada life
Real User
Good integrations and pretty solid, but should have CI/CD integration and more features like Trello
Pros and Cons
  • "Its integration with Bitbucket, Confluence, and other things is most valuable."
  • "If CI/CD is integrated with it, it would be better. I've used Azure DevOps before, and it's nice to have everything, such as CI/CD Repos and other things, integrated. Jira has fewer integrations. Azure DevOps has an easier interface, and it has got everything in one spot. I don't have to jump around in different applications."

What is our primary use case?

We are using it for project management.

How has it helped my organization?

It helps everyone to be on the same page.

What is most valuable?

Its integration with Bitbucket, Confluence, and other related products that Atlassian owns is most valuable.

What needs improvement?

If CI/CD is integrated with it, it would be better. I've used Azure DevOps before, and it's nice to have everything, such as CI/CD Repos and other things, integrated. Jira has fewer integrations. Azure DevOps has an easier interface, and it has got everything in one spot. I don't have to jump around in different applications.

It should have more Trello-like features. There are some things you can do in Trello, but you can't do them in Jira, which doesn't make any sense because Jira bought Trello.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It looks pretty solid.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It looks scalable. I haven't seen any issues.

It is being used extensively at the moment in our organization. Currently, IT departments are using it.

How are customer service and technical support?

I have not interacted with them.

How was the initial setup?

I wasn't around during the setup.

What other advice do I have?

It has a lot going on. They own Bamboo, but right now, we're using Jenkins

I have used Azure DevOps at another company. I would advise going for Azure DevOps because it has everything. You've got your DevOps, and you have your Repos. Everything is integrated.

I would rate Jira a six out of 10.

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?

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Senior Technical Manager at PurpleSlate
Real User
Top 10
Helps to track multiple projects and has good reporting features
Pros and Cons
  • "Jira has a good reporting system. It also has an API, so we can do all sorts of reporting."
  • "A lot of features, such as time tracking, are only available through the marketplace. If multiple users are working on a user story, we aren't able to pull out the reports. So, there are many things that they aren't offering. They are available only through the marketplace. That's not good for a product."

What is our primary use case?

We use it for project tracking. We do software development. We implement software development lifecycle, and we use Bitbucket for CI/CD pipelines.

How has it helped my organization?

We have a lot of vendors operating on multiple projects, so in terms of operations, we need to maintain the backlogs of different projects. The sprint approach for roadmaps is cool in Jira, but we are looking at whether the same option is available in Azure DevOps because one of our clients is looking into using Azure DevOps.

What is most valuable?

Jira has a good reporting system. It also has an API, so we can do all sorts of reporting. 

What needs improvement?

There are a lot of things. A lot of features, such as time tracking, are only available through the marketplace. If multiple users are working on a user story, we aren't able to pull out the reports. So, there are many things that they aren't offering. They are available only through the marketplace. That's not good for a product.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using this solution for five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's stable. The stability on the cloud is 99%, but we have deployed it on a virtual machine. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Both cloud and on-prem deployments are scalable. I'd rate it an eight out of ten in terms of scalability. 

Our clients are small and medium enterprises.

How are customer service and support?

I'd rate it a nine out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

The setup on the cloud is easy. I'd rate it a nine out of ten in terms of the ease of setup. The on-prem setup requires some work. I'd rate the on-prem setup a five out of ten in terms of the ease of setup.

We have four people who are working on Jira maintenance.

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

It's not very cheap. It's also not very costly. I'd rate it a five out of ten in terms of pricing.

What other advice do I have?

I'd recommend it to others. Overall, I'd rate it an eight out of ten.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Integrator
PeerSpot user
Information Technology Program Manager at Reframe Solutions
Real User
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: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Scaled Agile Consultant at Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield
Consultant
Great story maps, an excellent overview of team performance, and very scalable
Pros and Cons
  • "The user story map is excellent. The features can be composed into stories and they can be allocated to each of the sprints in a program increment. It allows you to see all that in the user story map, and you have various dashboards to see the stories in various views. You can see them as a backlog view, for example, or you can see as an actual sprint view."
  • "Whenever you edit a story, whatever you have changed takes a bit of time to save."

What is our primary use case?

I have been the product manager for several years. I use it day in and day out to manage my team. I manage two teams at the moment and they are pretty large teams. Each has a minimum of about 12 people. We use not just agile, we use a scale model framework. All the work is managed through two pieces of software we use. One is called Jira Align. For the portfolio level software, what Jira bought recently, the previous name for the software was AgileCraft. All of the portfolios and features come loaded in Jira Align. From there, they will be composed into stories in Jira. That process is done using programming preventative planning. We do it every three months.

All of the stories are tracked. We have a workflow defined and we have statuses defined. As the team works on the story, the story moves from one status to another and we close them when everything gets carried over to the production release.

What is most valuable?

The workflow is the most valuable aspect of the solution for us.

The user story map is excellent. The features can be composed into stories and they can be allocated to each of the sprints in a program increment. It allows you to see all that in the user story map, and you have various dashboards to see the stories in various views. You can see them as a backlog view, for example, or you can see as an actual sprint view.

There are excellent reports that come out of the data for every sprint so that you can do metrics on each. You can measure how the team is performing with respect to burn down charts, or with respect to how many story points were produced, or how many stories were moved out. For this, you can gauge the performance of the teams very effectively.

What needs improvement?

The solution needs performance improvements. We see that a lot of times it's clocking whenever there's any abuse.

When we switch from one view to the other, it takes some time before that view is presented. The performance for different dashboards, whenever they are loaded, it takes more time than you're comfortable with. Whenever you move from one dashboard view to another dashboard view, then it should come up quickly. Right now it takes a long time and sometimes it clocks. The overall product performance, whenever you switch a view is what they need to work on.

Whenever you edit a story, whatever you have changed takes a bit of time to save.

The integration between Jira and Jira Align needs to be better. There's a lot of differences between the two systems. I believe what happened was Jira bought this software from a different company called AgileCraft. And that integration is still in process, and, because of that, there's a lot of differences between the statuses. That sometimes creates a lot of confusion for senior management whenever they're reviewing performance across teams. Better integration between Jira and Jira Align is on the top of my "most desired upgrades" list.

The solution should improve performance when there are multiple users.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for about seven years now.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Whenever you load different views, it takes time. That's the only major issue. I didn't see any major glitches due to the fact that Atlassian is really good at catching them. The stability of this product is really great. I've been using it for, as I said for six, seven years now. I'm never unhappy with it.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Our entire company, whenever there's a new division that goes into the agile mode of developing software, brings on Jira.

It's really scalable, however, at the same time, you need to really throw hardware at it to offer better response times when you add users. That goes without saying for most of the software.

We currently have 2,000 users on the solution. We plan to continue to increase usage in the future.

How are customer service and technical support?

We have an internal tech support team for Jira. We contact them whenever we run into issues. We have a platform for IT tickets. We use that to call them. I haven't directly called Jira Atlassian at any point, so I can't speak about their direct technical support.

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

I have used other packages for agile project management.

How was the initial setup?

I wasn't involved in the initial setup, however, we have a Jira administrator and they have a group, and that handles it. I implemented Jira for my teams. I added users to roles on the system. Roles such as developer, administrator, approval, managers, etc. That is all done by myself. In terms of that task, and setting up a project, it's fairly easy.

Implementation is a multi-year process. Right now, the whole company is on Jira. Whenever there's a new group, it gets added, and a new team is created. It's always a work in progress and it's not very time-consuming.

I would say the training of people on how to use Jira effectively takes some time. It's very intuitive, however, at the same time, a little training goes a long way in utilizing the software in a much better manner.

What other advice do I have?

We are using the latest version of the solution.

It's a great piece of software. If you really want to do agile software project management Jira is definitely should be a top choice for you.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Krishnanunni M - PeerSpot reviewer
Dev Ops Engineer at a wellness & fitness company with 201-500 employees
Real User
Top 10
One-stop solution for requirement gathering with moderate pricing
Pros and Cons
  • "It's easy to use, and it also offers excellent notifications."
  • "It lacks features to cover all testing aspects, so we often integrate it with other plugins or tools like X-ray."

What is our primary use case?

We use it for requirements gathering. We raise our tickets; it takes tickets in the engine. We also use it for bug tracking and integrate it with the X-ray for testing.

What is most valuable?

Jira is a one-stop solution for all the requirements of an Agile project, including SSL. It's easy to use, and it also offers excellent notifications.

What needs improvement?

Jira has integrations with almost all other build management and alerting tools, both open-source and licensed ones. There are limitations to its data.

It lacks features to cover all testing aspects, so we often integrate it with other plugins or tools like X-ray. It would be beneficial if Jira included modules covering testing elements such as test planning, mapping test cases to requirements for traceability, tracking execution status, and managing different branches before release. Since Jira lacks robust support in these areas, we rely on additional tools like X-ray, which can be integrated with Jira. If Jira could incorporate these features internally, our processes would be streamlined.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Jira for 5 years. We are using the latest version of the solution.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I rate the solution's stability an eight out of ten.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Around 100 users are using this solution. It is scalable too.

I rate the solution's scalability an eight out of ten.

How are customer service and support?

Customer support is good.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

Jira is not difficult to install. We have an IT help desk team to take care of admin configurations, installations, etc. Everything is managed by different teams.

There are roughly around 50 people for deployments or maintenance overall.

What about the implementation team?


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

The product is moderate and has a yearly subscription.

I rate the product's pricing a five or six out of ten.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I have used some other test management tools, such as ALM. If it is a full model, it'll be too difficult to manage in Jira, but for Azure projects, Jira is the best. It depends also on the needs of the project.

What other advice do I have?

My advice would be to consider having a Jira license. There's a level of customization available, along with flexibility in pricing plans, so you can tailor your request according to your needs. This allows us to access features that align directly with our requirements.

Jira has integration capabilities with almost all build management and alerting tools. It offers seamless integration with both open-source solutions and licensed ones.

Overall, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Satish Gungabeesoon - PeerSpot reviewer
CTO, Digital Transformation at next pathway
Real User
It makes our lives better by streamlining the tedious daily work of project management
Pros and Cons
  • "In terms of product management, Jira increases productivity and visibility into the product. Those are the top benefits this tool provides to the team. Also, it's accessible to the executives and whoever wants to sign on to Jira to see what's going on."
  • "Reporting is something Jira could work on. The reporting capabilities should have the same flexibility we see in Excel, including the ability to manipulate data and create graphs. They need to have that, so we don't need to export to a spreadsheet."

What is our primary use case?

We use Jira to manage agile development from beginning to end. First of all, we lay out a backlog of everything that needs to be done. Within the backlog, We define a sprint of three to four weeks and prioritize in Jira. The backlog is stored and the sprints are defined in Jira.

The tasks or stories fall under the umbrella label "issues." The issues are created and assigned to developers, and the testing is tracked in Jira. After one is done, it moves into the QA stage. We track that all the way until we get to what is called "non-performance testing," which is part of production. We use Jira to track the status throughout, and we have daily stand-up meetings where all the developers get together to talk about their blockers, interdependencies, the net, etc. All of this is captured in Jira.

Our client is a bank, and we use a cloud version of Jira. We are the supplier, so we're onboarded and get a login for whatever they're using. Right now it's a cloud version that we are signed onto. They use a hybrid cloud because they have their own cloud because some of their systems are private, and some are in the public cloud. 

The bank works with a few cloud providers. They are using Google for this project. We are heavy into developing microservices, which use JKE, Google layer, Google Cloud Platform, Google Communities Engine, and all the other Google components for microservices development. Most of their stuff is deployed on Google, but they are also affiliated with a bigger bank that uses Azure, so some of their systems are deployed on Azure.

How has it helped my organization?

In terms of product management, Jira increases productivity and visibility into the product. Those are the top benefits this tool provides to the team. Also, it's accessible to the executives and whoever wants to sign on to Jira to see what's going on. 

There are different levels at which they can see the project. It depends on what they want. Somebody can, for example, create a report, but some of the reporting capabilities are not quite there. However, Jira can export all the data to a spreadsheet. Once it's in a spreadsheet, the sky's the limit.

What is most valuable?

Jira has a dashboard called Active Sprint. The board has a button on it for every developer, and when you click on it, you can see every task assigned to them along with the status. It's great to have visibility at that level. Every developer and test is there. 

What needs improvement?

Reporting is something Jira could work on. The reporting capabilities should have the same flexibility we see in Excel, including the ability to manipulate data and create graphs. They need to have that, so we don't need to export to a spreadsheet.

Jira should add some features from another Atlassian product called Confluence, which we use to track all the documents we need for development and testing. There should be better integration between Confluence and Jira. I like to use Confluence to do my reporting, and I should be able to go into Confluence and launch reporting at the source. 

Jira acts as a data source, and Confluence is where the dashboards are. It would be easy for Atlassian to develop all the dashboarding capabilities for executives so they don't need to log into Jira. There's too much there. It would be better if executives could log into Confluence, which is a document-based tool.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been using Jira for nearly three years, but I've only been directly using and trying to generate reports from it for probably two years. Before that, I had my project manager do everything with Jira, but lately I've been working with it directly. I might sign on and looking at things because I want to understand what's happening with the project. There are a few things that are not right with Jira though.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Jira's stability is pretty good. I haven't had any problems. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We've never had an issue scaling up Jira for big teams. It's not a problem for the banks I work with or our in-house development.

How are customer service and support?

I give Atlassian support eight on 10. 

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

I worked at IBM for many years, and we used an IBM product called CMVC. The difference is night and day. Jira is much better. 

How was the initial setup?

Infrastructure is all set up for us, and we go back to the bank's infrastructure team if there's a problem.

What other advice do I have?

I rate Jira eight out of 10. It boosts productivity tremendously by eliminating the chaos between development and QA. Jira manages the entire pipeline from development to production. If you're thinking about implementing Jira, you should go for it. It will make your life better by streamlining the tedious daily work of project management.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Jira Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: March 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Jira Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.