Using JIRA and Confluence in distributed Agile teams

JIRA and Confluence for Agile in distributed

teamsAnd the many, many pitfalls….

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

Can’t you just email it to me?

No.

This guy is your enemy

Don’t let him sabotage your project

Wallboards save lives

But remember some teams work differently…

Summary of all tasks

Single page view accessible to all teams

JIRA or Confluence?Which system should I create my stories in?

JIRA can confuse people

User stories want to live in Confluence until they’re signed off and ready for development

–Supplier Project Manager at the end of Sprint 4

“You know I wasn’t convinced, but this JIRA thing is awesome”

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

Create JIRA issueThis is awesome! Works on tables, will save you a

heap of time

Training is a challenge

Make sure dev teams understand the concepts before letting them loose on the system…

Before training…How not to manage a burn down chart…

Getting better…(apart from the time spent line)

Communicating information

In a controlled and collaborative manner

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

Wallboards againSeriously, they’re really important!

(and can be used for a Nerf gun scoreboard and sweepstakes…)

GovernancePainful but necessary, stakeholders from all teams

Co-locationIf you can, do it once a week…

…then go to the pub, relationships count.

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

Questions?