Understanding the difference between Jira team managed projects and company managed projects is one of the most important foundational concepts in Jira Cloud. This topic comes up frequently in real world administration and is also tested directly and indirectly on Atlassian certification exams. This video explains how these two project types differ, why certain project details are unavailable in team managed projects, and how this knowledge ties into Jira certification paths such as ACP 120 and ACP 520.
Company managed projects are designed for organisations that require governance, standardisation and central administration. In these projects, administrators can configure project level metadata such as description, category and project URL. These fields are not just cosmetic. Project categories are used for reporting, permissions grouping and portfolio level views. Descriptions help large organisations document purpose, ownership and scope across dozens or hundreds of projects. Custom project URLs support naming conventions and predictable navigation, which is especially important in enterprise environments with compliance or audit requirements.
Team managed projects are built around autonomy and speed. They allow teams to create and configure their own space without needing Jira administrators to manage workflows, fields or screens. Because of this design, team managed projects do not expose description, category or project URL settings. These elements exist at a global configuration layer in Jira Cloud. Allowing every team managed project to modify them would break consistency, reporting integrity and administrative controls across the site. Jira intentionally removes these options to keep team managed projects lightweight, isolated and safe to create at scale.
This distinction is not a limitation but a trade off. Team managed projects prioritise independence over centralised control. Company managed projects prioritise consistency over flexibility. Knowing when to use each is a key skill for Jira administrators, scrum masters and product owners. This decision affects automation scope, reporting accuracy, permission models and long term maintainability of the Jira instance.
From a certification perspective, this topic is especially relevant to the ACP 120 exam, which focuses on Jira administration for Cloud. ACP 120 expects candidates to understand project types, configuration ownership, global versus project level settings, and how these choices affect governance and scaling. Questions often test whether a feature is available in team managed or company managed projects and why. Understanding the reasoning behind these differences helps candidates avoid memorisation and instead reason through scenario based questions.
ACP 520 focuses more on Jira workflows, automation and advanced configuration. While it does not focus as heavily on project metadata, the concepts still matter. Workflow schemes, permission schemes and shared configurations only apply to company managed projects. Team managed projects operate independently. Candidates preparing for ACP 520 must understand how configuration scope changes depending on project type, and why some administrative actions are simply not possible in team managed spaces.
Becoming an Atlassian Certified Professional provides real benefits beyond passing an exam. Certification demonstrates that you understand Jira at a system level rather than just as an end user. It signals credibility to employers, clients and stakeholders. ACP certifications are widely recognised in consulting, enterprise IT, Agile coaching and product management roles. They also provide a structured learning path that helps professionals avoid costly configuration mistakes in real environments.
Certified professionals make better architectural decisions. They know when to use team managed projects for speed and experimentation and when to use company managed projects for scale and governance. They understand the impact of these choices on automation, reporting and security. This knowledge directly improves Jira implementations and reduces long term technical debt.
This video ties these ideas together by explaining not just what Jira allows, but why it behaves the way it does. That deeper understanding is exactly what Atlassian certification exams are designed to test and exactly what distinguishes an Atlassian Certified Professional from a casual Jira user.