Our team relies on Jira for most of our development work and I’m trying to figure out the right way to set up components in our projects.
Current situation:
We have multiple development modules in our system
Not sure if we should create one component per module or break things down further
Want to make sure we’re following good practices
Questions I have:
Should components match our code modules directly?
Is it better to have fewer broad components or many specific ones?
How do other teams typically handle this?
I’m curious about what has worked well for others. Any tips on structuring components so they actually help with project management instead of just adding complexity?
we keep it simple - match components to your sprint planning. if your regularly assigning tickets to specific devs or teams, build components around those boundaries. don’t overthink it. you can always refactor later once you see what’s actually getting used.
Skip mirroring your technical architecture - make components match how your team actually assigns and tracks work. We organize ours around ownership boundaries so each component has one clear owner. No more confusion about who handles what when stuff breaks. Think about your reporting needs first. Need detailed metrics on specific areas? Go granular. Just want high-level progress tracking? Keep them broader. We went too specific initially and ended up with components that had maybe 2-3 issues over months. Made sprint planning a nightmare. Here’s what actually works: create components based on your support model. When production issues hit, you want to route them fast to the right people. Components that match your on-call rotations or expertise areas beat purely technical divisions every time.
We hit the same issue when our project grew. Instead of matching components to code modules, we aligned them with our microservices. This gave us a much clearer view of deployments and issue tracking. You’ve got to think about what different people need: PMs care about features, devs care about technical boundaries, and QA cares about testing scope. Medium-sized components worked best for everyone. My advice? Start broad and only split when you have to. We made the mistake of over-engineering from the start and spent months consolidating tiny components that made reporting a nightmare.