How to let Jira ruin your process #3
Too Many Fields, Too Little Clarity
I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve opened a Jira ticket at a new organization and felt like I was scrolling through a junkyard of random fields. I know that it usually starts with good intentions—someone needed a custom field because they want to track this metric or that metric. Over the years, more and more fields get piled on, most go unused, and suddenly you’re dealing with a pile of unused or miss-used dropdowns and edit boxes.
Here's what happens
🗑 Failure to clean up People forget to remove outdated fields, so they linger in your system forever.
⚠️ “Othering” – When a field is mandatory but unhelpful, users pick “Other” just to get the ticket done.
❌ Data Garbage – With everyone shoehorning unrelated info, your metrics become meaningless.
Why This is a Problem
🔹 Skewed Analytics – If half your fields are blank or filled with “Other,” your data reports aren’t telling you much. Remember bad data is worse than no data. Much worse.
🔹 Junky UX – Cluttered forms turn off your team; they might avoid Jira or bury real issues in a catch-all field.
🔹 Slows Everyone Down – More fields = more friction. People spend time sifting through placeholders instead of focusing on real work.
🔹 Degrades Trust in the System – your developers aren’t stupid, even if some of the fields are. They will begin to disregard the truly important fields and data.
How to Fix It
✅ Field Audit – Regularly review all fields. If no one uses it, remove it. If it’s mandatory for no reason, make it optional or ditch it.
✅ Consolidate or Sunset – Combine fields that overlap and retire any that no longer serve a clear purpose.
✅ YAGNI – Ask: “Will this field help the team do their job better?” If the answer is no, it doesn’t belong. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT! If it doesn’t add value now and in the future, don’t add it in the first place.
Jira’s biggest problem is that it had no safeguards to keep it from turning into a complicated mess. Its biggest strength is that it has huge flexibility, but with great flexibility comes great responsibility, to paraphrase Uncle Ben (or Voltair if you’re fancy.)
#Jira #Agile #ProjectManagement #SoftwareDevelopment #UX
