Is Jira a project management tool?

Project managers who are starting off in software or part of a software team and getting familiar with the standard tools often ask if Jira is a project management tool.

Yes. Jira, a tool developed by Atlassian, began as a software development tool, but it’s now used for bug tracking, issue management, and as a project management software.

An issue in Jira, a software development and project management tool.

Jira is designed for use in agile software development and offers tools for PM like Scrum boards, Kanban boards, roadmaps, workflow management tools, and project reporting features. These features sit alongside its software development offering that includes knowledge management (such as transferring product requirement management from Confluence—another Atlassian product—to Jira), workflow automations with BitBucket (another Atlassian tool), and continuous integration and deployment pipelines. All of these features are wrapped together and marketed as a tool that helps agile software teams “ship early and often”.

Some teams use Jira as their main tool, taking advantage of its project and task tracking features. Others use the software as a stand-alone issue tracking tool, integrating it with their project management tools or bug tracking software.

Other tools similar to Jira include agile project management tools such as:

You can read more about these agile tools in this overview and comparison of agile project management tools.

You can find useful information on using Jira as a project management tool in our AMA session with project manager Andy McCormick.

He talks about using Jira with small teams or for multiple project types, how to use Jira for both your daily tasks and your big picture planning, how to help your team start using it, and why people hate and love Jira.