Advanced Road Maps and Jira Align are agile project management tools developed to support the agile methodology: Scrum, Kanban, Scrumban, or other agile hybrid methods.
When it comes to Jira Align or Advanced Roadmaps, we have noticed some confusion. What are the technical differences? What is the best option for my team? Can I use Advanced Roadmaps for my entire organization?
Advanced Roadmaps was designed to help multiple teams collaborate, track the big picture, identify dependencies across large pieces of work, and plan for team capacity, while Jira Align, is an enterprise agile planning platform that connects work to produce, program, and portfolio management at scale.
Comparing Jira Align and Advanced Roadmaps will help you identify the pros and cons of both tools and then match the best option to your unique business situation and the size of your company. Let's start by checking the main differences with a few categories:
Overview:
Advanced Roadmaps- creates realistic roadmaps for long-term agile planning while maintaining transparency with the use of Jira Software
Jira Align- connects teams to align strategy and outcomes at an enterprise scale
Team Size:
Advanced Roadmaps- 50-150 people at one time or up to 20 agile teams
Jira Align- 100s-1000s of users with multiple teams in an organization
Deployment:
Advanced Roadmaps- Included in Jira Cloud Premium. Atlassian Marketplace app for Jira Software Server and Data Center.
Jira Align- Cloud product supporting Jira Software Server, Data Center, and Cloud.
Number of Concurrent Jira Instances Supported:
Advanced Roadmaps- 1
Jira Align- 1+
Methodologies Supported:
Advanced Roadmaps- Scrum, Kanban, or custom framework
Jira Align- Scrum, Kanban, Scaled Agile Framework® (SAFe®), Lean Startup, Spotify, LeSS, Value Engineering, Scrum@Scale, hybrid or custom frameworks
Starting by having a regular reflection about what is your current situation and the challenges that your team or enterprise faces is the first step to align either tool to your current strategy. The truth is that one is no better than the other. Having the right information will help you to make the best decision.
Some questions to retrospect:
How consistent are your agile teams across the organization
How well has your Jira Software instance been working since it was deployed?
How consistent are your teams communicating across the organization
Are you ready for a new change?
We hope this short blog cleared up some of the basic differences between Advanced Roadmaps and Jira Align for you! If you still find yourself stuck between both possibilities, we'll be happy to guide you in the process. In some cases, you could need just one tool; in others, you could need a combination.
At the end of the day, the most important is to have the right information, choose the right partners, and consciously decide how, when and who will be involved in the process.