> Or does he think that using JIRA means a PM is forcing the team to follow an unwanted process?

Think that must be it. We use JIRA at work. We have very, very simple processes. We create issues, we assign them, we resolve them and they're closed when deployed ok. Minimal fuss.

I also have access to a customer's JIRA. They have like 6-7 steps between starting working on an issue and saying it's deployed in test environment. Another 5-6 to say it's delivered in prod. I saw the flow chart for the steps and it made my head spin.