Who builds the service portal and why that is the crucial question

A question that's too often skipped

Jira Service Management Cloud is now established in many companies. But while the tool has long been chosen, one question surprisingly often remains unanswered: Who is actually responsible for building the service portal? And what happens if this question is answered incorrectly?

In short: A Jira Service Management (JSM) portal should never be built solely by IT. Successful service portals arise when IT, business departments, and an experienced external partner jointly take responsibility – from defining the service catalog to UX and change management. Companies that set up their JSM portal as a cross-functional product achieve significantly higher usage rates and faster return on investment.

In this article, you will learn:

• Why a purely IT-driven approach to building the service portal regularly fails
• Which four typical weaknesses arise when the business is not involved
• Which roles a successful portal project needs – and who should take them on
• How Refined transforms the JSM portal into a user-friendly self-service experience
• What really matters in implementation

The classic constellation and its pitfalls

Imagine the following scenario: A medium-sized company decides on Jira Service Management Cloud. The IT department – experienced, motivated, tool-savvy – takes on the project. They configure queues, set up workflows, build forms, and go live after three months.

The portal works technically flawlessly. And yet: The usage rate remains disappointing. Employees continue to call, write emails, and talk to colleagues in the hallway. The self-service portal – actually the centerpiece – is hardly used.

What went wrong?

What IT does right and where it hits limits

It would be unfair to place sole blame on the IT colleagues. A purely IT-driven project approach has real strengths:

• Technical depth: IT knows the platform, understands permission models, integrations, and security requirements.
• Speed: Without long coordination loops with the business, you quickly get to doing.
• Governance: IT standards for naming conventions, SLAs, and incident classifications are adhered to from the start.

But here lies the crux: A service portal is not an internal IT system. It is a product used daily by people from across the company – from accounting, marketing, HR. And these people do not think in tickets, workflows, and queues. They think in problems, needs, and expectations.

"IT built a perfect system – but for themselves, not for the users." – A customer statement we hear alarmingly often.

The typical weaknesses of a purely IT-driven portal

In practice, four recurring patterns emerge when the business is excluded from the process:

• Language of IT, not the users: Forms ask for "incident type" and "priority level" – instead of "What is your problem?" and "How urgent is it?"
• Missing service catalog logic: Not everything IT offers is relevant to everyone. Without business input, user-oriented categorization is missing.
• No change management: The portal goes live – an announcement email is sent. No further adoption measures are taken.
• Appearance remains secondary: Jira JSM Cloud is powerful, but the out-of-the-box portal is plain. Without UX investment, it feels like an internal tool – because it originally was one.

All this leads to high usage barriers, confused service customers who struggle to select the right ticket. For them, picking up the phone and direct contact is more obvious and promising, leading to higher service load and lower acceptance by users.

What a good portal project really needs

The solution is not to push IT out of the project. IT is indispensable. The solution is to understand the project as a joint product – with clear roles:

• IT takes on platform, security, integrations, and operations.
• Business stakeholders define the service catalog, review forms from the user perspective, and drive change management.
• HR, Facility, Legal & Co. bring in their own service requirements – because a modern portal is rarely just an IT portal.
• An external consultant or project manager provides the necessary neutrality, mediates between interests, and ensures the project does not fall into the IT silo trap.

This role distribution sounds obvious – and it is surprisingly rare in practice. Too often the project starts as an "IT project" but quietly grows into a company-wide service hub without governance keeping pace.

Excursus: When the portal should look better – Refined

Those using Jira Service Management Cloud who want to elevate the standard portal visually and usability-wise should take a look at Refined. Refined is an add-on that transforms the JSM portal into a fully customizable, brand-compliant experience – without a single developer.

With Refined, you can configure custom homepages, intuitive navigation hierarchies, individual branding elements, and targeted content for different user groups. The result: A portal that feels like a modern intranet page to end users – not like a ticketing tool.

Especially when business stakeholders say "It looks like an IT tool" – Refined is often the fastest and most cost-effective answer.

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Conclusion: The question of "Who" is the most important question

Jira Service Management Cloud is an excellent tool. But no tool replaces the right project structure. Those who build the service portal exclusively from an IT perspective risk a technically flawless but humanly ignored product.

Swarmit Consultants take on exactly the role that is often missing: the neutral orchestration between IT, business departments, and management. We ensure that all relevant voices are heard – and that the portal is truly used in the end.

In practice, this means:

• Stakeholder workshops – defining together what the portal should deliver and for whom
• Service catalog – with the business departments, not for them
• Technical implementation – cleanly configured, documented, and handover-ready
• Change management – so the go-live is not a silent launch
• Knowledge transfer – so your teams can independently further develop the portal

The question "Who should implement the service management portal?" has a clear answer: Not IT alone. And preferably with experienced support.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

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Ready for a portal that is really used?

Swarmit is an Atlassian Platinum Solution Partner in Switzerland and supports companies in the DACH region in building and optimizing their Jira Service Management portals. Whether you are just starting or want to improve an existing portal – we bring experience from numerous JSM projects in Switzerland and ensure your portal not only works technically but is actually used.

Get in touch now without obligation – for a free initial consultation about your service portal project.