Hi everyone! I'm pretty new to the whole project management tool migration space, but I've been tasked with looking into moving our team away from Jira. We're a small data engineering team, and the complexity of Jira feels like overkill for our workflow. I keep hearing about Linear in open source circles, and its focus on developers seems appealing.
I’ve been trying to research the actual migration process, but most articles just compare features. I’m really hoping some of you who have done this move can share the nitty-gritty details. I’m a bit nervous about committing to a migration without understanding the real effort involved, especially with our historical data.
Could someone walk through what a step-by-step migration from Jira to Linear actually looks like? I'm particularly curious about:
* The data migration approach itself. What tools or scripts did you use to move issues, comments, and attachments? I'm comfortable with SQL and Python, so I'm wondering if I'd need to build a custom exporter or if there are reliable existing utilities.
* How you handled the cutover. Did you freeze all work in Jira for a period, or run both systems in parallel? Our team can't afford a long downtime.
* Most importantly, how long the transition actually took from start to finish, including the planning, the data export/import, and the time for the team to feel comfortable in the new tool.
I want to make sure we preserve our issue history because it's crucial for context, but I also don't want to get bogged down in migrating every single custom field from Jira if it's not practical. Any insights from your real-world experience would be incredibly helpful for this cautious beginner! 😅