If we create Initiative above Epic level then should we keep it in a separate JIRA project ?
Asked by Anil Bhide:

Got initial response on this from [@Mark Segall](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4667637) about Plans and Adv Roadmaps.

Correct Plans and Advanced Roadmaps are one and the same.

When you create a new issue type that is expected to reside above the Epic in the issue type hierarchy such as Initiative, you have a choice in how you want to employ it. Factors to think about as to whether Initiatives should reside with their child issues or centralized in their own project:

1. **Governance** - Do you want to limit who can create, transition, resolve these types of issues?
2. **Scope** - Will the child issues reside on multiple projects?

If the answer is "Yes" to either of these questions, it makes sense to use a central repository for managing the Initiatives. From there, you would just need to be sure that you're adding that project to your Plan's issue source.

[@Mark Segall](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4667637) We have multiple Modules or Independent components being developed. So per JIRA limitation we are thinking to have Epic -\> Story -\> Task hierarchy in each project which is per module / component we are building. At org level / bigger product theme - we would like to map multiple EPICS from multiple projects to Initiative at the top - platform / Org level.

In such case where should we keep the initiatives?

create a new project and add just initiatives in it or is there a JIRA space/repository at top, above projects where we can keep adding initiatives and link Epics from projects to Initiative?


Answers:
author: Walter Buggenhout
body: Hi [@Anil Bhide](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/5387468) ,

You seem to have all the things to keep in mind in your question. There is no right or wrong, here. From my experience, it makes it easier to manage if you have your initiatives in a separate Jira project (Atlassian recently added a template called *top level planning* with that in mind). As you mention, having your initiatives in a separate project makes it easier to:

* manage permissions for people to create / edit / view initiatives;
* create an initiative kanban board with an overview of all initiatives per status;
* help users learn where initiatives must be created

Exceptions I've seen that made total sense, is large organizations with multiple programs having plenty of (more or less) isolated program initiatives.

Hope this helps!

comments: author: Anil Bhide
body: Thanks [@Walter Buggenhout](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/783225) Helpful !


author: Anil Bhide
body: [@Walter Buggenhout](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/783225) [@Mark Segall](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4667637) I tried creating a separate project - its a team managed project. Added an Issue type there as Initiative and added few Initiatives. Then i have different other projects from where need to Link EPICs to these Initiatives in a separate project. In this case will i be able to add the initiative as a parent to the other Epics in other projects ? or have to use linking ? Trying based on the below link to use parent relationship from Epic to Initiative. somehow unable to find the options mentioned in below guidance. Where to set the initiative - Epic hierarchy ? in dedicated initiative project or the other projects holding Epics ? or at global template level in JIRA ? We have the premium license at the moment.

[Configuring initiatives and other hierarchy levels \| Atlassian Support \| Atlassian Documentation](https://confluence.atlassian.com/advancedroadmapsserver0329/configuring-initiatives-and-other-hierarchy-levels-1021218664.html)


Tags: cloud