Managing sprints, versions and builds at the press of a button. Jira integrates with Bitbucket, with the option of adding commits to branche

I used to manage a development team.


Our team was global, even before Covid-19.

We had a weekly update call, but most of the task management was done through Jira.


It's a tool I love to use in a development

setting.


Hierarchy is built based on the issue type. From Epic, through stories, tasks and sub-basks to bugs.


For each issue type you can design your own workflow and process. This flexibility isn't always so intuitive to create, but once you create it, it's perfectly suited for your development needs.


Design, development and testing can all be natively integrated.


Integrate InVision and Sketch for design. Then pass the data through to the developers.


Managing sprints, versions and builds at the press of a button. Jira integrates with Bitbucket, with the option of adding commits to branches including notes. Making outputting version notes so so easy.


And Jira also has the ability for two-way integration with Applause for testing. This is one of the features I really loved. Testing, re-opening and closing bugs was a snap!


[I could write an entire article about Applause. But the TL:DR version is that it's a contractor for all your QA needs. Having a large scale testing team at hand without the hassle of managing one.]


Jira has time management options for each issue: estimated time, logged work time, start and due dates, etc.


Their reporting gives you a clear glance at where your project is, what each team member's workload is and where you have bottlenecks. Plus so many more management reports.


The one 'report' I was missing was the Gantt chart. The software doesn't come with this option built-in and you need to install a third party tool to create the charts. I wasn't impressed by what we used at the time.


Jira gives many preset view options. Going from Kanban, to list, to detail view is one of the best UI/UX experiences I've had on a project management tool.


It's great for not just code (software or website) development and testing, but for collaboration on content development, design and so many other types of projects.


Their pricing is super affordable. Free for up to 10 users. If you have a bigger team, it starts at $70. But that averages out to less than $7/user.


Do I use Jira daily for project management?

No.

But that's because I'm basically a one man show.


Would I recommend it for team collaboration?

You bet!