Best practices for using components in jira projects

Question

We actively use Jira in our daily development. I would like to know if there are any recommendations on creating project components in Jira?

For example, in your opinion, is it better to create a component for each development module in Jira, or perhaps finer components are preferable to your team?

Answer 1

Components are like small subprojects. Projects seem most useful when they group people together. I recommend to my clients that JIRA projects to some extent reflect the social organization, at least until the number of projects becomes very large.

Also, avoid using a component named "Misc" or "Other." They tend to become dumps that no one cares about.

Answer 2

The most important thing in the components is to be unambiguous and not too much. In our team, we are now moving on to the level 3 hierarchy (in the sense of GreenHopper):

• At the top level, you have BA components that are few in number and outlined by the team (below, backend, GUI). This helps the partner bays send the request to the correct DEV team manager assigned as a component.
• the second level is the actual process (in the sense of Unix). This is a very clear definition. In case the problem is mapped to several processes, we assign it to one of them (BTW, GreenHopper does not allow multiple leaf components, but just JIRA). This is done by the DEV manager.
• the third level is optional and rarely used, denoting a subsystem within the process. We use it when a significant part of the problems are related to a clearly defined part of the code, and we want to track them separately. This is usually done by the developer working on the problem.

For such a progressive refinement to work, you need to have an idea of ​​who assigns which component and who processes the problems associated with it. The latter is indicated by the Lead component, the first is clearly not supported by JIRA (or we could say that BA can only see their components that control DEV, only their subcomponents + all BA, etc.)

Answer 3

I would match the components with your modules / artifacts / banks, so each problem can belong to a specific module (although it may have dependencies and relationships with others).

If you can make a strong argument for finer problem management than the module level, consider why you will not separate the associated module either.

If this comparison 1-1 helps clarify the release schedule, you can easily decide which problems version X of your project has and which modules focus your efforts. It also helps simplify the associations between Jira, the build system, and SCM, for example. if you use Bamboo, you will probably have an assembly project for each module, so you can just add an association.

Answer 4

As of 4.2.4, it is impossible to implement version components, only projects. Keep this in mind if you want to use the roadmap feature.

There is a long-standing (7+ years) request for adding versions for components:

http://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRA-3501

Answer 5

Create a component for each main module or, possibly, even for the system level (for example, Backend, Frontend). I would not go to the level of detail at the module level. You can add components to support activities, such as BA, testing (coordination with mdoar) ... Components are orthogonal to versions / releases

Answer 6

Now I have one more component.
With clients, I refer to the Components field as:

A multiselect field that useful for automatically assigning issues. Each of the things in this field has a potential assignee associated with it.

and then I say:

If you don't care about automatic assignment, just treat the components field as a convenient system field.

So, to answer the original question again, ask yourself, do you assign questions by team or to the exact level that you spoke about?
Probably the first one.

Answer 7

JIRA is designed to ensure that each component of the project has the same set of version numbers, so if you want to have independent version numbers, you either need to configure a different project for each component, or use the plugin I developed that allows you to use version numbers for specific components and at the same time allows you to group components in a package. Plugin "Component / Subcomponents / Package Versions for JIRA" and is available on the Atlassian Marketplace. For more information, see the atlassian plugins page. Another option is to force each component of the command to have the same set of version numbers. Otherwise, it is very difficult to select the correct version numbers for the components.

Answer 8

We use a hierarchy of level 2 components (thanks to greenhopper ...) - Themes and Epics. The creation of Themes and Epics in Greenhopper does not allow us to collect and report on how we want, and it helps a lot.