Ask HN: Hard and deep tech – why are Jira and Confluence the go-to PM tools?
Atlassian was built for software workflows, so I get why software teams rely on it. But for hardware/ops-heavy teams, it always felt like an odd fit to me.
My take for why hardware/ops teams still use it are below but I'm curious to hear other people's opinions.
1) Regulatory + data security requirements (ITAR, export control, validated systems, etc.) box teams into whatever their org already approved years ago.// 2) Heritage + inertia. Jira/Confluence have been around forever, most companies already use them, and no one wants to be the person who tries to introduce something new.// 3) “At least everyone knows how to use it.” In mixed orgs (prime <> supplier <> test house <> customer), Jira/Confluence are the lowest common denominator tools people can agree on, even if they're a bad fit.// 4) No one wants to adopt or pay for another system. Hardware teams already juggle spreadsheets, slides, GSE databases, readiness trackers, etc. Jira and Confluence are “good enough,” so they stick.
If Jira and Confluence aren't a great fit for hardware/ops work, what would a better tool actually need to do? And what would make adoption difficult?