Jira is a project management and issue tracking platform from Atlassian, designed to help software teams plan, track and release work.
Designed with Agile teams in mind, Jira supports Scrum and Kanban boards, backlogs and sprints, roadmaps, and customisable workflows, with automation to streamline routine tasks. It is suitable for teams that need to organise work, coordinate across disciplines and report on progress in real time.
This profile explains what Jira is, how it is typically used, deployment options and who it serves, with practical guidance on how teams can structure their work and flows.
What is Jira?
Jira is a work management platform that enables teams to capture, track, and manage issues and tasks across projects. Its core purpose is to support software delivery and broader project management by providing a structured way to plan work, visualise progress, and report on outcomes. Teams create issues (such as stories, tasks, or bugs), organise them within boards, and move them through customised workflows that reflect their processes. Jira emphasises visibility, collaboration and control over workflows, making it easier to align team activity with product goals and timelines.
Key Features and Capabilities
- Agile planning with Scrum and Kanban boards, including backlogs and sprint planning
- Backlog management and prioritisation to organise work before execution
- Customisable workflows and issue types to model team processes
- Roadmaps for long-term planning and feature delivery
- Automation rules to streamline repetitive tasks and transitions
- Real-time dashboards and reports with flexible filters to monitor progress
- Granular permissions and security controls to manage access and governance
- Extensibility and integrations through the Atlassian Marketplace
How Jira Is Typically Used
In practice, Jira is used by software development teams to plan work, track progress and manage releases. Teams create and classify work items, such as user stories, tasks and defects, and place them on agile boards to reflect their current status. Backlogs are used to prioritise work ahead of sprints, while roadmaps provide a view of upcoming features and milestones. Jira also serves as a central source of truth for project status, with dashboards and reports that support stakeholder visibility.
Beyond software development, Jira supports cross-functional projects where teams need structured issue tracking and configurable workflows. It can accommodate different team roles, from product management and design to QA and operations, with custom fields and workflows that mirror the organisation’s processes. The automation features help reduce manual steps, ensuring consistency across projects and teams.
Who Jira Is Best Suited For
Jira is best suited for software development and IT-related teams that require structured planning, issue tracking and collaboration. It appeals to organisations ranging from small teams to larger enterprises that adopt Agile methodologies and need configurable workflows, visibility across projects, and scalable reporting. While primarily used by software teams, Jira can support cross-functional work and project management across departments that require detailed task tracking and status reporting.
Deployment, Access and Integrations
Jira is available in cloud and self-managed deployment options. Specifically, it is offered as Jira Software Cloud (SaaS) and Jira Software Data Centre (self-managed). Access is provided via web browsers as the primary interface, with additional access through the Atlassian ecosystem of tools and apps. Jira supports extensibility through the Atlassian Marketplace, enabling integrations with a wide range of apps and services and providing tools to extend functionality and connect with other teams and platforms.
Summary
Jira offers a structured platform for planning, tracking and reporting on work, with support for agile practices, configurable workflows and automation. Its deployment options span cloud and self-managed environments, and its extensibility through the marketplace enables integration with a broad ecosystem of tools. The platform is most suited to software teams seeking controlled processes, visibility into progress and the ability to tailor workflows to their specific delivery practices.
Example workflow
A Jira status change updates the customer ticket and notifies support. No manual work.
