Jira is a super flexible tool and has various options available to project admins. One area that needs consideration is project type. Our Team has extensive knowledge and experience in this area, so let's break down the information and help you make the right choice for your team.
When creating a project - Jira will offer you multiple templates based on the products you own.
However, when establishing a project in Jira Software, there are two approaches: Team Managed and Company Managed. It's important to understand the differences between these options to make an informed decision about which one is most suitable for your needs.
The two project types differ in terms of who administers the project and how much control they have over the project’s configuration. Company-managed projects have a more complex configuration than Team-managed projects, which have a simpler configuration. In addition, company-managed projects have a standardised workflow between multiple projects, while team-managed projects do not have that option. When creating a project your template will default to Team-managed unless the template clearly says Company-managed, or you select the ‘share settings with an existing project’ tick box.
Team Managed Projects
These are set up and administered by a specific team that use the functionality. The team users are responsible for creating, configuring, and managing each project within their specific area of responsibility. Within Jira Software these are stand-alone projects from a configuration point of view and should be considered to be singular and siloed from other projects. This would include setting up project templates, issue types, custom fields, configuring workflows, and managing user permissions.
We recommend you choose a team-managed project if:
Your team wants easier project configuration to get started quickly
Your team is self-forming and likely to adapt and change within their work
You want a self-contained space to manage your team’s work
For smaller teams or simpler projects, opt for team-managed projects.
Company Managed Projects
These Projects are managed by a company or organisation, typically using a centralised approach. This type of project may involve multiple teams, departments, or divisions, and may be used to track and manage a wide range of tasks and issues related to the company's operations. This approach benefits a centralised process and allows for cross-project planning and reporting. While a Jira admin is needed to configure such projects, this does not stop that admin from being a team member, but they may have more access than in a Team-managed scenario.
We recommend you choose a company-managed project if you:
Would like to standardise configuration across multiple projects in your organisation
Want complex customisation with regard to permissions and workflow
Need cross-project reporting and standardisation
Choose company-managed projects for larger initiatives involving multiple teams or departments.
Things to Note
Team-managed projects have some limitations. These limitations happen because team-managed projects are designed in a way that a new team can create and configure a project however they want, without having to learn anything about Jira company-managed projects and schemes.
You are unable to have a Custom Field that’s used on both team-managed and company-managed projects.
An Epic created in a team-managed Jira Software project is not the same Epic issue type you use in a company-managed Jira Software project.
While Issue types are available, the hierarchy is restricted to Epic at the parent level and sub-task as the child level. Only the issue type Sub-Task is available in Team-managed.
Converting a team-managed project to a company-managed project will likely cause some information to be lost, if not done with care and attention to field mapping.
When using automation, changes to boards will have a direct impact on status field mapping.
Team-managed projects have simple access types - occasionally leading to everyone on a site viewing a project, even if role definitions are made.
If flexibility in integration options is important, consider company-managed projects due to their advanced configuration capabilities.
How to Migrate from Team Managed to Company Managed
As discussed earlier, if you set up a project as Team managed and decide later down the line that it needs to align with business standard workflows and schemes there is a ‘migration’ process that will need to take place.
This is because the custom fields, issue types, statuses and workflows used by Team-managed projects are not shared across the system. These will need to be re-created or mapped and clarification of the ‘why’ to ensure when you are selecting which option to use, you choose the right option for your team long term.
Here at Sourcesense, we offer a migration facility as an extension to our services, which can be completed as a standalone exercise (lift and shift) or with associated process assistance, training and guidance on best practices with teams.
The Sourcesense Recommendation
The Atlassian tool set, and especially Jira is extremely useful and has a huge range of capabilities, its extensiveness can sometimes lead to over complex configurations or misaligned practices.
Our knowledge on this subject has come from customers who have eagerly got their hands on a new instance of Jira and in sheer excitement of the features, teams have run away and created a Team-managed project to allow them to get started straight away, enjoying the feature-rich functionality.
Team-managed doesn't mean simpler to configure, it purely gives a user-friendly interface and makes set-up easier, but still can create issues if incorrectly configured. Company-managed may be more complicated, but this doesn't mean it's hard to implement and maintain. Both approaches have multiple valid scenarios and should be assessed on a case-by-case basis based on team methodology, process and business strategy. The same way a business should complete valid analysis for tool choice should be applied when dealing with the rich functionality set within a tool as well.
After a business initially onboards Team-managed projects, when everyone in the business has more experience with Atlassian products and after a review of their Atlassian set-up, standardisation starts to take place and with this comes the process of deciding what to do with all of these Team Managed projects that now require standardisation. This process is almost a project that requires management within itself.
Contact us at International@sourcsesense.com for advice and further information!