Jira is the biggest software development planner tool there is. It has everything any software engineer could wish: A simple to use platform and multiple modules or products that cater and tackle different requirements (Jira Core, jira confluence, portfolio...).
By using Jira you’ll be able to manage all kinds of business projects by supervising, track and handle every step or task involved in every different process.
We have talked about Jira and the other modules before, which you can find here, in case you want to know a little bit more about this platform. However, today we will focus in Jira Portfolio, and how software developers can benefit from it.
What is exactly Jira portfolio
Like we said, Portafolio is one of the main modules of Jira, and can be integrated with Jira Core. Jira portfolio is designed to help software developers create plans and gain a clearer perspective of the entire development processes.
Now, Jira Portfolio itself isn’t a software development tool. It can be used to manage all types and kinds of projects, however, Jira Portfolio was meant to be used as a agile software development tool.
If you don’t know what agile software development is, we recommend you to read our blog about it, here. But essentially, Agile software development is the ability to develop a software solution working under specific requirements, deadlines and specifications through collaborative effort.
By implementing Jira Portfolio, you gain a visual image of your work and the processes involved, even better, you to gather and visualize the team involved in the project and the different tasks they are carrying out.
Why Jira Portfolio is the perfect tool for software developers
In general, you can use all of the features in Jira software to successfully manage a software development process, however, Jira Portfolio is the only tool that allows you to create, manage and visualize an accurate roadmap.
There are main features of Jira Portfolio that software developers should be focusing on, which are:
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The Planner: With this feature you can create a plan for every project you’re currently working on, as well as include your team in it. Through this feature, you can map, schedule, track and organize every step involved in the process you’re carrying out.
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Tracking: Portafolio allows you to track the status and progress of the tasks regarding your project. Be able to set start and end dates for specific tasks or events, forecast when these things will happen, reschedule if necessary and maintain a better organization throughout the whole process.
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Manage different scenarios: Jira portfolio allows you to create multiple roadmaps to test out the different ways to tackle down a project and the various scenarios you could try to see which one is the best option for you.
The reason why Jira portfolio is the perfect software development tool for engineers is simple: When combined with jira software, you can manage your current planning to meet the requirements of agile software development (no matter what type of development you’re implementing)
Benefits of implementing Jira Software
If you would like to know how to use Jira Software in a much more in depth way, take a look at our previous blog, here. We explain everything from how to stall it to getting started and creating your own plan.
However, before you jumped in into setting Jira Portfolio, take a second to understand the benefits of this technology and why we love using it here at Rootstack.
1: Start small and move into long-term planning
Much like it happens with agile software development, Jira Portfolio supports the notion of planning multiple steps at the same time, moving from the smallest portions to tackle down the bigger picture.
The main benefit of Jira Portfolio is that you can manage long-term planning through their platform by implementing their roadmap feature. In other words, you can set up a goal, established deadlines for different tasks and coordinate them with your epics from Jira Software to achieve these tasks through an specific period of time.
2: Adapt it to your preferred method of planning
Just as Jira Portfolio stated it themselves, Portafolio supports both time-boxed and scope-boxed planning, depending on the approach you’re thinking of using. This way, you don’t have to pick just one.
No matter what approach you choose, Portfolio will show you a forecast of the next events in your calendar, the possible deadlines and the possibilities of meeting those dates.
3: Have a better management of your workload
Perhaps the best thing about Jira Portfolio is that it allows you to have all of your team gathered in a single platform and being able to manage the workload amongst all of your team members depending on their current tasks.
This way, you can visualize what your team members are working on and accordingly assign different tasks depending on whether or not they have the time and disponibility to do so.
In conclusion, Jira Portfolio is a power tool that can be shaped as a have-it-all planner platform that will help you, as a software developer, create, manage and visualize your internal processes through every step of the general project.
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