What is the best way to plan and display all project with resourcing and environment dependancies

[Jake S]

I would like to provide the team a view of all projects in a Gantt chart view that includes each teams work and environment dependencies.

What is the best way to do this?

Currently I am planning to set up a central project and then use Epics to represent Projects and Stories to represent each teams work as well as environment dependencies, then view this information on the Timeline. It would also be great to see dependencies from each project and also dependencies of work within each project.

[Mary from Planyway]

Hi @Jake S 

Creating a Gantt chart view in Jira to visualize all projects, including each team's work and environment dependencies, requires strategic organization of your Jira projects and issues to effectively manage and represent complex dependencies. While Jira's native capabilities, particularly with Jira Software and Advanced Roadmaps (part of Jira Software Cloud Premium), can facilitate this kind of visualization, the approach you've outlined can be refined to optimize the visibility and manageability of your projects. Here's a step-by-step guide to refine your strategy:

1. Leverage Advanced Roadmaps

If you haven't already, consider using Advanced Roadmaps, which is specifically designed for planning across multiple teams and projects. Advanced Roadmaps allows you to visualize work in a Gantt chart-like timeline and manage dependencies between issues across different projects. Alternatively, you can experiment with third-party solutions like BigPicture or Planyway Timeline which also provides you with the workload capabilities right on the timeline. 

2. Organize Projects and Issues

Your current plan to use a central project with Epics representing individual projects and Stories for team tasks is a good start. However, consider the following adjustments for clarity and scalability:

• Projects as Projects: Keep each project as a separate Jira project. This helps maintain clarity and leverages Jira's project-level reporting and management capabilities.
• Epics for Major Features or Components: Use Epics within each project to represent major features or components, grouping related tasks (stories, tasks, and bugs) under them.
• Tasks and Sub-tasks for Detailed Work: Use tasks to represent individual team's work and sub-tasks for more granular activities, ensuring that each piece of work is properly categorized and tracked.

3. Visualizing Dependencies

• Issue Links for Dependencies: Use issue links in Jira to denote dependencies between tasks, both within the same project and across projects. This will allow you to track and visualize dependencies directly on your Gantt chart or timeline.
• Cross-Project Dependencies: With Advanced Roadmaps, you can easily visualize cross-project dependencies by linking issues across projects. This is crucial for understanding the interdependencies of your projects and planning accordingly.