Effective JIRA management for parallel iOS and Android app development

I’m working on a project that involves building both iOS and Android apps. The apps do the same thing but for different platforms. I’m using JIRA for project management but I’m not sure how to set it up best.

I’ve thought about two ways to do this:

  1. One JIRA project with shared user stories and separate subtasks for iOS and Android. But this might get messy and make it hard to see which app is behind.

  2. Two separate JIRA projects (one for iOS, one for Android) with duplicate stories. This seems easier to manage but I don’t like having to copy stories.

Has anyone dealt with this before? What’s the best way to organize JIRA for parallel iOS and Android development? I want to keep track of both apps easily but avoid too much duplication. Any tips would be great!

hey ryan, i’ve dealt with this before. what worked for us was one jira project with labels for ios and android. we used epics for big features and stories under them. it kept things organized without duplicating everything. you can filter by label to see progress for each platform. just my 2 cents!

Having managed similar projects, I’d recommend a hybrid approach. Create one main JIRA project, but use components to differentiate between iOS and Android tasks. This way, you maintain a unified view of the project while easily filtering for platform-specific work.

Set up epics for major features, then create stories under each epic. Use labels like ‘iOS’ and ‘Android’ to mark platform-specific items. For shared functionality, create a single story and use subtasks for platform-specific implementation details.

This structure allows for easy tracking of overall progress and platform parity, while still providing the flexibility to manage platform-specific work separately when needed. It also simplifies reporting and sprint planning, as you can quickly generate views for each platform or the project as a whole.

I’ve been in your shoes, Ryan, and I can tell you from experience that finding the right JIRA setup for cross-platform development is crucial.

After some trial and error, I found a solution that worked wonders for my team. We opted for a single JIRA project with a clever use of custom fields and workflows. We created a ‘Platform’ custom field with options for iOS, Android, and Shared. This allowed us to easily filter and track progress for each platform without duplicating stories.

For shared functionality, we’d create a single story and use the ‘Shared’ tag, then link issues for iOS and Android-specific implementations. This approach provided a clear overview of feature parity and platform-specific progress.

We also set up custom dashboards for each platform lead, showing their team’s workload and progress. This setup streamlined our sprints and improved cross-team collaboration. The key is to find a balance between granularity and simplicity while ensuring you can track progress effectively.