Should Wrike be the project management software of your choice, or is Jira a better option? Below, we contrast the two workflow management tools so that you can make the right decision.

Jira

It’s no exaggeration to say that the agile method is the most successful model for software products in the present era. Alternative models have been proposed and tried out, but they invariably failed in the long run. At least, none of them has had as wide an impact as agility yet.  In this context, the agile tools that Jira brings become particularly important.

Among other tools, the project management service brings you Kanban boards and scrum boards which make tracking the progress of tasks easy to perform in real-time. Using such tools, you could easily discern which tasks are on track and which are lagging. Jira also brings you multiple project views including story points and user stories, while also supporting agile sprints.

If you trace back Jira’s history, you could see that the tool was initially developed in order to help track coding bugs in software projects. Though many more functionalities have been added to the software since then, this feature still remains central to Jira. Using the feature, you could locate and record any bugs that you may find in software that is under development.

You could also view all issues in the backlog. This sort of comprehensive view is especially useful when you need to prioritize solving one bug over the others.

If such features gave you the impression that Jira is meant solely for software development teams, rest assured that that’s not the case. Certain versions of the project management service ably support other departments too. For instance, you could plan product launches and events using the software- something that marketing teams would appreciate. Meanwhile, the human resources department would like the fact that you could customize workflows in Jira to optimize hiring and onboarding processes.

Wrike

Contrasting with Jira which is of special use to software development tools, Wike’s features can easily be adapted by different departments.

 Whether the department is involved in hiring, marketing, development or anything else, chances are you could easily find features that could be customized for your purposes. In fact, the platform even brings you a number of templates that could be considered specific to departments.

To keep track of project progress, Wrike brings you real-time analytics. Infographics, reports and analytic dashboards are all updated automatically every fifteen minutes or so. You can get real-time analysis of metrics including workload, approvals, team performance and project statuses.

This feature becomes even more useful if you are guiding multiple projects simultaneously. Such up-to-date analytics are not part of every project management service, making the feature, not just useful but also special.

Another way in which Wrike is a little different from other project management tools is by virtue of its dashboard. Made of three panes, the dashboard brings all the details of projects that you want to access in a single space. You can access financials and projects using the first pane while the second one helps you create and assign tasks to different team members, and also set due dates for the tasks. The last pane contains all the current tasks and subtasks.

Though the phrase ‘holistic view’ is bandied about a lot in the context of dashboards, this is one instance when it is truly merited.

Should you choose Wrike or Jira?

Software development teams, especially ones that use the agile methodology, would find plenty to like about Jira. Though other kinds of projects could also be run using the workflow management tool, Wrike’s features are probably more supportive for them.

What do Jira and Wrike lack?

Much as the agile-centric features of Jira is admirable and as useful as real-time reporting in Wrike is, both the tools fall short in one important way. They don’t help you measure the exact time someone spends on a task, without counting the break hours and the like. Accurately predicting the project delivery time then becomes a moot point.

This makes the project management software, I’m Productive a viable alternative. It measures the time spent on tasks accurately. More than that, it helps you predict project delivery with just a click of a button. It even employs a powerful AI to help you do that. Check out the website to explore more about the tool.