Jira Software Features for Product Owners and Development Teams

Jira is the #1 software development tool used by agile teams. It’s designed to help development teams plan, track, and release awesome products. With Jira Software, teams can work within multiple different frameworks, including Kanban and Scrum, while gaining access to agile reporting, integrations, and automations.

It’s completely versatile, so teams can work in whatever way best suits them. Plus, Jira Software is designed to help teams continuously improve their performance. This agile project management and agile software development tool is available in three different packages:

• Jira Core: The basic Jira platform
• Jira Software: Jira Core plus additional Agile functions
• Jira Service Desk: Service experience delivery

In this post, we’ll focus on all of the features available for teams using Jira Software. We’ll cover what’s included and how your team can make the most of Jira Software features and add ons.

Jira Software Scrum boards

Jira Software is designed to work within various agile frameworks. The Scrum process helps devops teams bring iterative and incremental value to stakeholders and customers.

One Scrum is usually made up of a two-week sprint that aims to complete a specific set of backlog items from the product backlog. Product owners plan sprints, and a Scrum Master guides the development team through the various stages of the Scrum.

The team works to complete the most important work while meeting for daily standups to review their progress and any potential roadblocks. The daily standup allows teams to learn on the go and use an iterative and customizable approach.

Jira Scrum boards unite teams around a single goal while promoting iterative, incremental delivery. The tool provides data-driven Scrum insights so that product owners and team members can keep track of sprint goals and improve retrospectives. Jira’s customization helps teams deliver consistent value to stakeholders quickly and effectively based on ever-evolving customer feedback.

With Jira Scrum boards, you can:

• Build a single source of truth for all of the work that needs to be completed
• View your progress visually during the development cycle
• Provide all team members with a clear view of what’s on their plate
• Quickly identify any blockers or potential blockers
• Organize work around the sprint time frame
• Avoid over-committing on work at any given time
• Don’t lose track of key dates or milestones.
• Utilize key metrics, including burndown charts and velocity reports

Jira Software Kanban boards

Image credit: Atlassian

Kanbans provide workflow transparency for development teams by establishing a visual representation of what needs to be done, what’s in progress, and what’s been completed. They also help teams understand their capacity so they can focus on one key task at a time. Work to be completed moves from one column to the next — from To Do to In Progress to Done.

Jira Kanban boards provide a framework for teams to continuously and efficiently deliver work. They are simple to use, visually engaging, and completely customizable to the specific needs of the team. Jira Kanban board columns can be customized based on other requirements, such as In Review or Waiting for Client Feedback.

With Jira Kanban boards, you can:

• Clearly visualize workflows
• Depict work at distinct stages
• Build a single source of truth for all of the work that needs to be completed
• View an at-a-glance summary of where work stands
• Capture relevant information for Jira issues, tasks, stories, or bug tracking
• Limit the amount of work-in-progress
• Prevent bottlenecks and spot them before they delay work
• Configure workflows to be as simple or as complex as needed
• Customize boards based on the needs of the team
• Utilize real-time visual metrics

Jira Software roadmaps

Roadmaps help agile teams see the big picture surrounding the development of a product. They establish a flexible plan for what the team hopes to accomplish and provide a visual of how all of the pieces connect.

Even though the roadmap lays out a clear view of the road ahead, it’s not a set-in-stone plan of what’s to come. The agile methodology and nature of roadmaps mean they are constantly updated and fine-tuned based on new information that continually flows in from team members, stakeholders, and customers.

Jira roadmaps are available to teams and organizations through Jira Software Premium. They help teams track progress based on the big picture to predict capacity and avoid bottlenecks.

With Jira roadmaps, you can:

• Sketch the big picture
• Map and account for dependencies
• Track your progress
• Account for team bandwidth
• View capacity on a sprint-by-sprint basis
• Iterate and update as you learn more about a project, product, or customer needs
• Sync in real-time so that everyone is on the same page
• Create multiple roadmap versions to account for different scenarios
• Share your roadmaps with stakeholders

We designed the simplest roadmapping tool for Jira. Our Easy Agile Roadmaps For Jira help development teams create product roadmaps that are simple to use, flexible, and collaborative. It offers an intuitive one-click drag-and-drop functionality and a super-clean user experience. Watch a demo of our roadmaps in action to learn more.

Jira Software reporting

Image credit: Atlassian

No matter how you choose to use Jira, you’ll gain access to a range of critical insights. Clear metrics will help your team make data-driven decisions. Utilize agile reports and dashboards to better understand what you’re doing well and where you can improve your process.

Use Jira reporting to analyze sprint reports, burndown charts, release burndowns, velocity charts, cumulative flow diagrams, and more. Real-time data helps teams track progress in a meaningful way, including managing sprint progress and accounting for scope creep. Take clear data into your retrospectives and provide customizable dashboards to stakeholders and leadership.

With Jira reporting, you can:

• Make data-driven decisions
• Track your progress against both product and sprint goals
• Monitor progress so you can take action if work falls behind
• Use past data to create realistic estimates
• Spot overcommitment and excessive scope creep
• Catch bottlenecks
• Predict future performance
• Take clear metrics intro retrospectives
• Provide stakeholders with visual data using customizable dashboards

Jira Software integrations

Image credit: Atlassian

Jira offers integrations with the tools and apps your team is already using. You can seamlessly connect Jira Software to plugins like Bitbucket, Trello, Confluence, GitHub, Slack, and many more. There are thousands of integrations available.

You can also extend Jira Software with over 3000 apps available in the Atlassian Marketplace. The marketplace contains apps for dozens of categories, including code review, design tools, reports, time tracking, and workflows.

That’s where you’ll find the Easy Agile products we designed to offer teams a customer-centric approach to product development.

Easy Agile TeamRhythm is trusted by companies of all sizes, including Amazon, Twitter, Adobe, AT&T, Cisco, JP Morgan, and Rolex. Our team agility app helps you and your team deliver for your customers by prioritizing the work that will deliver the most value to your users. It helps you work better together with smooth sprint and version planning, simple story mapping, easy backlog refinement, and team retrospectives for continuous improvement.

Access a free trial for 30 days. If you have questions, contact our team to learn more about our suite of Jira products.

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