ALM Works Extends Its Structure.Gantt Capabilities
ALM Works’ Structure is a Jira plugin that enhances and expands Jira’s capabilities for project management, requirements management, QA, and help desk. Structure enables enterprise-level organization of Jira issues and stories with multi-level, cross-team, and cross-project hierarchies. This application is available in the Atlassian Marketplace.
Structure.Gantt is an extension of Structure. It allows users to display cross-project and cross-team work in a Gantt chart. Every Gantt chart consists of two parts:
- Work breakdown structure, which defines the scope of work and is built using Structure functionality.
- The chart itself, which visualizes tasks on a timescale, showing start and finish dates, dependencies between them, and other management information.
Unlike other project management tools, the Structure.Gantt integration with Jira provides accurate and up-to-date information of delivery work progress as it happens and enables managers to tap into the underutilized data contained within Jira and Structure.
The latest Structure.Gantt releases (2.0 and 2.1) brings noticeable changes, such as:
- Structure.Gantt becomes a paid app (2.0)
- Resource Leveling allows users to automatically resolve overallocations for a single resource or group of resources (2.0)
- Visualization of delivery progress against defined baselines (2.0)
- Specify duration separate of work for auto-scheduled tasks (2.1)
- Indicator when a task is not visible on the chart due to insufficient permissions or the Gantt configuration, along with an explanation (2.1)
Our Take
ALM Works’ Structure.Gantt provides versatile Gantt chart features as a tool to better manage programs and portfolios, a noticeable missing feature in Jira. Organizations that are already invested in Jira and will be managing large programs involving multiple teams will see significant value with Structure.Gantt’s low-cost extension. Atlassian’s Portfolio for Jira attempts to address their portfolio management gap, but its value is yet to be seen.