Jira or Azure DevOps, which do you prefer ?

Many Agile Business Analysts have tools that they use on a daily basis to perform their work.

After some time, they grow to love these tools and are quite resistant if a new application is introduced to replace these beloved tools.

But as a Business Analyst you have to be adaptable, so while you might have a preference you need to abide by the organizational standards.

Two applicants that are well known and loved by many business analysts are Jira and Azure DevOps.

What is Jira ?

Jira is a project management and issue tracking software that has numerous functionalities that can be used in software management.

These functionalities include Agile project management, bug tracking, content management, software development and service management.

It is especially useful for software development because it has built in templates that can be used to help you manage a software development project.

What is Azure DevOps ?

Azure DevOps or Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) as it was previously known, is a tool that is by DevOps teams to manage their projects, collaborate on code development, and build and deploy applications.

DevOps is a technique which merges software development (Dev) and IT operations (Ops).

The AzureDevOps application has numerous standard functionalities that can be used for Agile project management and these include the following:

  1. Requirements management
  2. Project management
  3. Code storage  
  4. Seamless integration 
  5. Test cases management
  6. Reports and dashboards.
  7. Retrospective.

Both of these applications are great project management tools that have numerous useful functionalities.

But what are the difference between Jira and Azure DevOps ?

  • Agile methodology : Jira is used by software development teams to manage their agile methodology of choice from Scrum, Kanban and even Scrumban. While Azure DevOps is used by software development teams to manage their DevOps lifecycle. Azure DevOps has standard process templates which include Scrum, Agile and CMMI that are customizable to suit the user’s requirements. These templates can be used to track product backlog items, manage user stories and also manage software bugs.
  • Comparison: Azure DevOps and Jira are both used for application lifecycle management and they help organizations to manage their application lifecycle right from the planning stage right down to the post implementation stage.

In summary, Jira and Azure DevOps are both project management tools which are used in project lifecycle management. They have standard standard Agile methodology functionalities which an be customized to fit in to suit the organization’s business needs.