3. Who am I?
Senor Consultant & Architect
Former London AUG Leader
8+ years Atlassian user & hacker.
Finance, Trading & Energy Industries
Currently DevOps for a bank
4. Who am I?
Lived in London for 15 years
Australia is a second home
Young family
Decided to move to Melbourne
Needed a tracker…
5. The Problem
Hard deadlines
Lots to track
• Removals
• 3 years of “life debt”
• Renting home
• Disconnections
• Change of addresses
• Financial planning
• Holiday planning
• ….. and 2 toddlers!
6. The Problem
Very limited capacity
Every moment counts
Work from anywhere
Harvest “small moments”
24 Hours
"Free Time"
9%
Relationship
4%
Chores
7%
Commute
7%
Children
13%
Work
35%
Sleep
26%
Sleep Work Children
Commute Chores Relationship
"FreeTime"
10. The Solution
Normally host on Mac mini at home
NAT & Dynamic DNS for external access
One off licence costs
But shortly about to be “homeless”
No DSL
Cloud Hosting
1&1 VPS not capable; too many limits
Atlassian Cloud, Contegix, Adaptavist*
Higher cost; simplicity; no hassle
* Other Atlassian hosting options exist!
11. The Solution
Components
• Arrival - Finding a new home
• Employment - Resign & find a new job
• Holiday - flights, car hire, accommodation
• Leaving - Shutting down our life
• Rental - Becoming 1st time landlords
• Shipping - Packing, customs
13. The Solution
Sprints & Versions
• Initially tried sprints
• Wanted burndown charts & velocity
• Unpredictability of resource availability (i.e. me)
made them unreliable
• Same problems as running BAU & a sprint
• Versions focussed the mind on fixed events e.g.
Departure from Heathrow
14. The Solution
Agile vs Kanban
Kanban boards proved useful
Highlighting tasks as they came close to due
Resource constraints around due dates
We couldn’t give sprints the full resource
16. Lessons Learnt
Sledgehammer meet nut…
What we really wanted was a simple
collaborative, online task tracker.
Only used small % of functionality
Confluence tasks might have done.
But I’m a Jira nerd!
17. Lessons Learnt
Process
Full agile approach was too heavyweight
Standups were very useful for heartbeat
Constant feedback
Encouraged experimentation
Keep it lean
18. Lessons Learnt
Cultural
Speak to your partner before assigning issues
Conversations through comments aren’t helpful
Don’t email list of tasks every morning
Don’t suggest having a wallboard at home
Promote it as a way of storing information in one place
Reinforce achievements (tasks closed)
19. Lessons Learnt
Practicality
Going agile doubles your cost
Not a mobile first solution natively
Difficult to create issues on the go
Considered SMS to email gateway
Jira phone apps a must for productivity
20. Lessons Learnt
Practicality
A client can cost more than a licence
Jira phone apps a must for productivity
• ResolveIt
• Jira Connect (Free/Pro/Enterprise)
• jira.me
• Jira Anywhere
• Wings for Jira
• Cricket for Jira
• My Jira Client
• Pocket Desk
• Jira RealLife - MIA
21. Lessons Learnt
Atlassian Cloud
Can feel slow after using on-prem
Limited customisations
Costs escalate fast with additions
No control over outages
Takes away system admin headaches!
No emergency updates
Great way to try out tools
So easy!
22. Where next….?
Project LIFE
• Medium to long term tasks & personal goals
• Jira too much overhead for very simple tasks
like “get milk” & “tidy toys”
• Pen & paper is hard to beat for simplicity
• Still looking for that perfect tactical solution
23. Where next….?
Family Days Out
• Storing ideas for those rare sunny weekend
days in Melbourne
• Reports: Good for… sun / cold / wet
Restaurants
• List of potential places
• Workflow tracks if you have been
• Reports: Pick a suburb / cost / rating
Change of Address Register
• Perpetual list of records
• Every time you move, reopen all issues
24. Where next….?
Beyond Jira
The Agile Family
• Rapid feedback
• Collective ownership
• Self determination
• Encourage experimentation
• No fail in failure
Maybe when they are older.