Jira Connector: Intelligent Connection between Agile and Classic 

Jira is used in many companies as a software solution for agile procedures. However, the tool is hardly suitable for supporting traditional project management methods. This blog article describes how hybrid software-supported work that combines agile and traditional approaches is possible

This gap between the agile and traditional project management worlds can be closed by a PPM platform that enables genuine hybrid working, supports both agile and traditional methods and consolidates all project information in a shared database. However, if Jira is used in the “agile area”, classic project management usually works with an alternative. It is essential to establish an intelligent and powerful connection between these two solutions.

Bridging the information delta

In a typical scenario, overall planning is carried out in a “classic solution” and only individual parts of the project are planned in Jira. For example, the development department plans its activities, including the development of the software components required for this project, in Jira. The classic solution used by the project management specifies when which software functionalities must be completed in the form of milestones. In Jira, these requirements are represented by corresponding release objects and fixed in terms of time. The task of the product owner is now to break down the requirements into epics and stories and organize them into sprints. If the Jira planning does not match the time specified in the milestone and delivery of the software components is only possible at a later date, this information is transferred to the classic system via an interface, or better still via a connector, and triggers a risk there. With this information, the project management can enter into an exchange with the product owner and discuss whether the planning of the software development or the milestone planning needs to be adjusted. 

This simple example gives a good first impression of what the interaction between Jira and traditional project management software could look like. Even though the PPM platform cplace itself offers customizable agile and classic solutions, cplace enables this form of collaboration with Jira. “With cplace, we don’t want to replace systems that work well and are accepted, but we want to create the interfaces there to create the right views for users and also for management. And that’s undoubtedly what cplace does with the Jira Connector,” emphasizes Christoph Huber, PreSales Solution Engineer at cplace.   

The experts at cplace know from numerous customer projects that there is no single Jira standard. Rather, each customer uses the tool differently. For this reason, cplace also follows the Citizen Development Approach with the Jira Connector and gives employees in the companies the opportunity to configure the connector themselves according to their wishes – without any programming knowledge. The connector offers bidirectional data exchange so that changes can be transported in real time from Jira to cplace and vice versa from cplace to Jira. The customer alone determines which data is exchanged according to which principles and which solution is the leading system for which data. The Jira Connector has the necessary knowledge of Jira and cplace semantics, which makes it flexible and efficient to modify on your own. It is familiar with the specific data structures and processes of both systems, which makes integration much easier and eliminates data silos. 

Larger companies in particular work with several Jira instances to map the specific requirements of the individual areas. The Jira Connector from cplace supports this. It enables a 1:n connection and can thus aggregate the data from multiple instances, which makes scaling easy.

Conclusion: Jira Connector enables true hybrid project management

The larger a company is, the more diverse the approaches in projects are. Even if the organization has defined standards for its project management and established these through a PMO, for example, the parallel application of agile and traditional methods poses a challenge. The widespread solution, hybrid project management, also requires software support. This is provided by a suitable PPM platform that supports as many methods as possible. However, in the agile world, the tool of choice is usually Jira, meaning that the use of a powerful connector between the “agile and classic project world” is required. This should perform a bidirectional data synchronization in real time, aggregate the data from several Jira instances and be modifiable to the company-specific requirements without technical knowledge and experience in software development. This gives companies the necessary flexibility and efficiency for their hybrid projects and facilitates scaling.