Project Portfolio Management and Resource Planning with Jira

The project started with an evaluation of the existing project portfolio management tool and the requirements for mapping the Flight Level. The XALT TEAM then defined the requirements for the new solution based on the existing system and process configurations.

In the planning phase, the work steps for implementation in Jira were then defined and prioritized. The work packages were divided as follows:

• Set up an overview board in Jira mapping all projects with the relevant data – for example how many person-days are planned or already spent on projects, what a project's percentage progress is, and how the effort incurred is linked to individual deliverables.
• Build a hierarchy structure, so that project portfolio management as an overarching instance can sum up and map all necessary project information.
• Implement workflows and define new issue types, for example for monthly reporting and resource-based project planning.
• Create automations in Jira, so the necessary information from projects is automatically available in project portfolio management.
• Set up scripts via ScriptRunner to extend certain functions and build simple applications that can't be implemented with Jira Automations – for example hiding fields or setting write permissions on a field.
• Develop resource planning including an approval process. For this, Jira Service Management's Asset Management was used along with standard Jira functions. An asset was created for every functional team within a project. This lets the project manager assign effort from their project to an asset or role (for example the IT team, finance team, customer area team) when planning a deliverable. In a next step, the responsible manager of that team can then approve or reject the required resources.
• Testing and go-live.

Over the roughly five-month project, the XALT TEAM worked in an agile way together with EEX and ECC. Features were prioritized and worked through based on Jira Advanced Roadmaps. In daily stand-ups, progress and the respective next tasks were coordinated within a cross-functional team.

Implementing project portfolio management and project management in Jira has led to significant efficiency gains, both for users and at the management level. Acceptance and the associated use of Jira within EEX and ECC is also higher, so Jira has become a fixed part of daily work. Users' existing Jira know-how enables joint further development of the project portfolio management tool as well as coordination of work at the delivery level.

These results summarize the benefits:

Reduced workload

• Planning effort for project managers was reduced by around 50%, since no duplicate data maintenance is needed to have the data relevant to portfolio management readily available.
• Using automated workflows reduces manual effort and makes it less error-prone.
• Jira enables evaluation of portfolio management data directly in the tool using dashboards, reducing effort spent on manually created presentations.

More transparency and confidence for decision-makers

• Display of the up-to-date project status on the project portfolio management overview board.
• Integrating all information into the same system minimizes the risk of manual errors and improves data quality.
• The ability to coordinate cross-team project work, down to linking resulting tasks to a single team member.

Efficient resource planning based on current data

The resource planning in Jira, developed by the XALT TEAM according to customer requirements, offers

• a clear overview of the roles within a team assigned to certain project tasks, and
• capturing planned effort per role.