Jira’s Versatility Against GRC Tools Control

Striking the Balance: Jira’s Versatility Against GRC Tools’ Control

Jira is a widely-used project management and issue tracking tool developed by Atlassian. Originally introduced in 2002, Jira has evolved into a comprehensive platform that enables teams to plan, track, and manage their work efficiently. Its versatile features and customizable nature make it a popular choice for various industries and project types.

As such Jira is not originally designed for GRC purposes, however, with customization and the use of various plug-ins and configurations, Jira can be adapted to manage certain GRC processes.

The following are some ways Jira can be used for GRC:

Risk Management:

You can create Jira issues to represent risks and assign them to relevant stakeholders. Using custom fields and workflows, you can track the risk assessment, mitigation strategies, and monitor risk status over time.

Compliance Tracking:

Jira can be used to create tasks or issues related to compliance requirements. You can customize workflows to ensure that compliance tasks are assigned, completed, and documented properly.

Incident Management:

Jira can be configured to handle incident reporting and management. Security incidents, compliance breaches, or other incidents can be reported as issues, tracked, and managed within the system.

Audits and Assessments

: Jira can help manage audits and assessments by creating issues to track audit schedules, findings, and action items. Workflows can be set up to ensure timely completion of audit-related tasks.

Policy Management:

You can create issues to manage policies and procedures, track changes, and ensure that policies are reviewed and updated on schedule.

Reporting and Dashboards:

Jira provides reporting and dashboard features that can help visualize GRC-related data, track progress, and present information to stakeholders.

Integration with Other Tools:

Jira can be integrated with other specialized GRC tools or compliance management systems to create a more comprehensive GRC solution.

The following is a table which provides the cost comparison between Jira and GRC tools:

Jira

$790 annually

Standard Fusion

$6000 per user/ annually

MetricStream

$100,000 license fee

IBM OpenPages

$272 per user/ annually

SAP GRC

$500-$15,000 per license fee

Now, while these points may seem promising, Jira may not provide all of the specialized features and capabilities that dedicated GRC tools provide. If an organization’s GRC needs are complex and require advanced functionalities such as in-depth risk modeling, automated compliance checks, or advanced reporting, you might consider using a purpose-built GRC tool.

In the end, it is important to ascertain the requirements, the customization needed, and any potential limitiations before deciding on using Jira for GRC needs. GRC professionals can also be consulted for determining if Jira is a suitable solution for your specific GRC needs.  

 

AUTHOR: TALAL AMIN