Experiences using Atlassian tools with distributed agile teams by Kevin Smith

1. JIRA and Confluence for
Agile in distributed teams
And the many, many pitfalls….
Friday, 4 July 14

2. Key points
• Information wants to be free
• Meeting notes are your friend
• JIRA can over-complicate user story management
• Make sure external users have training
• How to effectively communicate
Friday, 4 July 14

3. Can’t you just email it to me?
No.
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4. This guy is your enemy
Don’t let him sabotage your project
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5. Wallboards save lives
But remember some teams work differently…
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6. Friday, 4 July 14

7. Summary of all tasks
Single page view accessible to all teams
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8. JIRA or Confluence?
Which system should I create my stories in?
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9. JIRA can confuse people
User stories want to live in Confluence until they’re
signed off and ready for development
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10. –Supplier Project Manager at the end of Sprint 4
“You know I wasn’t convinced, but this JIRA
thing is awesome”
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11. Confluence can work better
Stories are simpler to edit in confluence and people tend
to prefer to update them more here rather than in JIRA
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12. Create JIRA issue
This is awesome! Works on tables, will save you a heap
of time
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13. Training is a challenge
Make sure dev teams understand the concepts before
letting them loose on the system…
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14. Before training…
How not to manage a burn down chart…
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15. Getting better…
(apart from the time spent line)
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16. Communicating
information
In a controlled and collaborative manner
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17. Daily stand-up
• Every day
• Same time
• Same location
• No excuses
• No disruptive team members!
• Keep it to the point
• No whinging
• Take it offline
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18. Wallboards again
Seriously, they’re really important!
(and can be used for a Nerf gun scoreboard and sweepstakes…)
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19. Governance
Painful but necessary, stakeholders from all teams
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20. Co-location
If you can, do it once a week…
…then go to the pub, relationships count.
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21. Biggest learnings
• The tools do matter, having 3rd parties in a single system helps,
a lot!
• Relationships can be neglected when teams are separated, co-
locate, video-conference.
• Page restrictions cause pain - use only for commercially
sensitive information
• Get people on-board. Some people don’t like JIRA, those
people sometimes need a cattle prod…
• Sometimes JIRA is overkill, particularly for non-technical teams,
use what’s appropriate for the audience
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22. Questions?
Friday, 4 July 14