Effective project management is essential for any team looking to achieve its goals and deliver results. Plans in Jira Premium provide a powerful way to organize and oversee complex projects. These plans offer a high-level view that helps teams coordinate their efforts across multiple projects and timelines. With features like customizable hierarchies, capacity planning, and scenario planning, teams can align their daily tasks with broader business objectives. 

This blog will dive into what plans Jira Premium are and explore common configurations that can enhance your planning process, helping you make the most of this robust tool.

What are Plans in Jira Premium?

1. Plans in Jira Premium

Plans in Jira Premium refer to the advanced roadmapping feature (available via Advanced Roadmaps or Advanced planning) designed to help teams manage complex projects by providing a high-level overview across multiple teams, projects, and timelines. It enables better visibility, long-term planning, and resource management, making it easier to align day-to-day tasks with business goals. Key features include customizable hierarchies, capacity planning, dependency management, scenario planning, and real-time updates from Jira projects, helping teams efficiently plan and track work over time.

2. Key Features of Plans in Jira Premium

• Expand Hierarchy Levels

Allows you to create additional layers in your plan’s hierarchy beyond the default Epic → Story → Sub-task structure. You can add higher-level items such as Initiatives or Themes, enabling you to track broader business goals and strategic objectives. This customization helps visualize how smaller tasks contribute to larger projects, providing more comprehensive project oversight. It’s especially useful for organizations that manage large, complex projects or multiple workstreams that need to be aligned with top-level initiatives.

• Take All Dependencies into Account

See and manage all task dependencies, even those outside your plan. This helps you understand how interconnected tasks affect timelines, ensuring that all dependencies are addressed. It provides visibility into potential blockers or delays that may impact the project, enabling better coordination and smoother project flow across teams and tasks

• Sandbox Environment

Lets you make changes in your plan without affecting live Jira data until you’re ready. It allows you to explore different scenarios, update tasks, or adjust timelines in a controlled space, ensuring no changes are committed to Jira issues until confirmed. This gives teams the freedom to experiment with planning options and refine their strategy without the risk of disrupting active projects.

• Capacity and Velocity Planning

It helps you schedule work based on your team’s available capacity and historical velocity. It allows you to plan at a realistic pace by considering how much work your team can handle in a given period. By factoring in workload, availability, and past performance, this feature ensures that plans are attainable and that teams aren’t overloaded. This helps improve planning accuracy and ensures smoother project delivery.

• Scenario Planning

Explore different versions of your project plan based on various “what-if” scenarios. You can test how changes in resources, timelines, or scope would affect your project without altering your live plan. This feature helps teams prepare for different outcomes, allowing them to be flexible and responsive to unexpected changes. It’s a useful tool for assessing risks and making informed decisions about project strategies.

3. How to create a plan

Before learning more, Let’s see how to create a plan in Jira Premium, follow these steps:

• Navigate to Jira and click on Plans in the main menu.
• Select “Create Plan” and fill the plan name, access and Issue sources (Jira projects, boards, or filters).
• After that, click Create to save your plan.

Source: Atlassian.com

Common Jira Configurations for Your Plan 

1. Issue Sources Configuration

The Issue Sources feature in Jira Premium’s Advanced Roadmaps allows you to pull in work items (issues) from various places in Jira, such as: 

• Projects: A project contains all the issues related to a specific initiative, and you can include one or more projects in your plan.
• Boards: Scrum or Kanban boards reflect team workflows and sprint progress, pulling in issues based on the board configuration.
• Filters: Custom Jira filters allow you to define specific criteria (e.g., issues by priority or assignee) and only include those in your plan.

By configuring issue sources, you can aggregate data from multiple teams or departments into a single plan. This feature ensures that you’re including all relevant work for your project planning and tracking. It offers flexibility in how you structure your plan by allowing you to choose what specific issues should be part of the roadmap based on your needs.

2. Hierarchy Levels and Issue Types

In Jira, Hierarchy Levels represent the structure of work, from high-level initiatives down to tasks. Default levels include Epics, Stories/Tasks, and Sub-tasks, but in Jira Premium, you can customize this by adding levels like Initiatives or Themes.

=> Read more: Jira Issue Type Hierarchy: Everything You Need to Know

How to customize the issue hierarchy

• • Access Plan Settings: Open your plan and click the plan name, then select Configure.
  • Go to Hierarchy Levels: In the “Hierarchy” section, click on Hierarchy Configuration.
  • Add Custom Levels: You can add new levels (like Initiatives or Themes) above Epics by clicking Add Level.
  • Map Issue Types: Assign Jira issue types (e.g., Initiatives, Features) to your custom hierarchy levels.

Source: Atlassian community

3. Teams Configuration

Teams Configuration in Jira Premium allows you to define and manage your project teams within Advanced Roadmaps. You can:

• Add Teams: Create teams within the plan and link them to specific boards or projects.
• Set Team Capacity: Define team capacity based on working hours and availability.
• Assign Issues: Allocate tasks or issues to teams to track their progress.
• Track Performance: For Scrum teams, track sprint velocity to predict future performance.

How to add an existing Atlassian team to your plan: 

• Click on the Teams tab within your plan.
• Click Add team and select Existing team from the options.
• Use the search bar to find the Atlassian team you want to add.
• Select the team and click Add to include them in your plan.

Source: Atlassian.com

4. Dependencies and Scheduling

Dependencies and Scheduling in Jira Premium’s Advanced Roadmaps help teams manage how tasks relate to each other and ensure efficient project planning.

You can check dependencies in the Dependencies Report tab, which provides a visual overview of all task dependencies within a plan. It shows which tasks are blocked or blocking others, helping you identify potential bottlenecks. The report highlights unresolved dependencies and their impact on project timelines, allowing teams to take proactive actions to avoid delays.

Source: Atlassian.com

Additionally, you can select automatic scheduling, which adjusts tasks according to dependencies and priorities, or manual scheduling, which provides greater control over start and end dates.

To modify the Auto-scheduler settings:

• Click the Auto-schedule button in the plan view.
• Adjust the criteria for what the Auto-scheduler should include or exclude from your plan.
• When you’re ready, click Preview Results to start the auto-scheduling process.

5. Manage Releases

Releases in Jira Premium’s Advanced Roadmaps help teams track work toward key project deliverables or milestones, such as product launches or version releases. You can create a release by defining its name, start and end dates, and associating it with specific issues or tasks. This allows you to monitor progress toward completion and ensure that work aligns with project deadlines. Releases also offer visibility across teams, helping manage dependencies and ensuring that all work is on track for timely delivery.

How to manage Releases in a plan in Jira Premium:

• Click on the Releases tab to view or manage releases.
• Create or Edit a Release:
  • Click Create Release to add a new one, defining its name and start/end dates.
  • Edit existing releases to update deadlines or content.
• Link relevant issues to the release, ensuring tasks are aligned with the timeline.
• Track progress toward the release goals.

Source: Atlassian.com

6. Scenario Planning

In Jira Premium, Plans function as a sandbox environment for experimenting with various project outcomes. By enabling Scenario Planning, you can explore different pathways to milestones or project completion with minimal disruption. It allows you to adjust key inputs like dates, resources, and scope to simulate multiple outcomes. Whether aiming for the best-case scenario, preparing for the worst, or exploring middle-ground options, scenario planning helps teams make informed decisions and stay flexible in response to changes.

Source: Atlassian.com

7. Reporting and Progress Tracking

You can use The summary screen to have an overview of your plan’s status, offering visual cues on project progress, team capacity, and timelines. Key elements include progress bars, team workload, and milestone tracking. It highlights overall completion rates, helps identify bottlenecks, and provides insights into whether the project is on track. This screen allows you to quickly understand where the project stands and make informed decisions, while also generating reports that can be shared with stakeholders for broader visibility.

Source: Atlassian.com

To capture a specific snapshot of your plan in Jira Premium’s Advanced Roadmaps, you can create a new view. This view allows you to customize how your plan is displayed, focusing on specific teams, issues, or timelines. It helps you save a specific configuration of your plan, which can be revisited later or shared with stakeholders to provide a tailored perspective on the project’s progress or status at that moment.

Source: Atlassian.com

Best Practices for Configuring Plans in Jira Premium

1. Define Clear Objectives

Set clear goals for the plan, aligning it with business priorities and milestones. This ensures that the plan serves the broader strategic purpose of the organization.

2. Set Up Accurate Issue Sources

Include relevant Jira projects, boards, or filters. Ensure the issue sources are properly configured so that all necessary tasks are pulled into the plan.

3. Customize Hierarchy Levels

Use custom hierarchy levels to match your organization’s structure (e.g., Initiatives, Themes). This helps in tracking both high-level goals and detailed tasks.

4. Set Capacity and Resources Properly

Define each team’s capacity based on their availability, including working hours, holidays, and other factors. Proper resource management ensures workloads are balanced and timelines are realistic.

5. Regularly Update and Review

Keep the plan up to date by syncing real-time changes in Jira. Regularly review task progress, dependencies, and timelines to ensure everything stays on track.

6. Use Scenario Planning

Take advantage of the scenario planning feature to model different project strategies and account for potential changes in resources, timelines, or scope. This helps make data-driven decisions with flexibility.

Conclusion

Plans in Jira Premium provides a comprehensive solution for managing complex projects and optimizing team performance. With tools for capacity planning, dependency management, and scenario planning, teams can align their daily tasks with overarching business goals while maintaining flexibility in the face of change. 

By leveraging Common Jira configurations, teams can create tailored roadmaps that reflect their unique workflows and priorities. Understanding and utilizing Plans in Jira Premium not only streamlines project management but also empowers teams to collaborate more effectively and achieve their goals with greater precision. As you explore the potential of Plans in Jira Premium, you’ll be better equipped to navigate the challenges of modern project management.