Well, it’s that magical time again. Not-Summit is just around the corner. I don’t care how much I practice it; team ’22 always feels more awkward than Summit ’22.  

My curmudgeon-like tendencies aside, I’m super excited about the event! I’m not privy to as many secrets as I was last year, but from the rumors I’ve heard inside Atlassian, we could potentially be in for some exciting keynotes. 

That being said, the other big part of team ’22 will be the breakout sessions. And whether you will be there in person or, like me, attending virtually, it’s a great chance to branch out and learn the craft of being a Jira Admin. So I figured I’d take the opportunity today to look at what sessions excite me! Typically, I’ll take team as a whole and give you 5-10 sessions that have piqued my interest, but team ’22 has grown so large that I think it best to look at the four tracks and pick three sessions from each track that I like! So let’s get started with our first track: Agile & DevOps!

Agile & DevOps

Bringing people, processes and tools together for true transformational success

• Speakers: Tina Behers, Jon Kern
• Session Type: Expo Theatre mini-session (Live in Vegas)
• Time: April 6, 2022 @ 1:45 PM Pacific Time

First up, we have a talk from Adaptavist. They are discussing a truism I don’t think some companies understand. To me, it seems like most executives view DevOps as some sort of cure-all. You throw in some money in the form of tools, and *poof*, your teams are more efficient.  

But DevOps, as a practice, is more than just tools. It’s a process using those tools and the people who can understand both the Tools and the Process. It’s like the fire triangle – without one side, the other two collapse. From the synopsis, this is exactly what Adaptavist intends to talk about, so I’m interested in learning from their experience in this area!

Should you be in an open [software] relationship?

• Speaker: Justine Davis, Scott Farquhar, Tiffany To
• Session Type: Keynote (Livestream)
• Time: April 6, 2022 @ 2:00 PM Pacific Time

If you follow ‘The Jira Guy‘ on LinkedIn, you would have already seen me share out Justine’s post on this session. Technically, it’s a keynote, which means we also have the possibility of learning some new goodies and features from Atlassian in this session. As always, I intend to watch all the keynotes and will be putting out posts for each that detail any “need to know” information that Atlassian reveals!

Feature flag use cases you haven’t heard about yet

• Speaker: Joy Ebertz
• Session Type: Technical Deep Dive (Digital Experience)

One thing I love doing is taking a familiar tool and finding some way to do something…different with it. This was precisely my point behind one of my very first Articles, and I continue to look for new ways to do this.  

So you know this title would have instantly captured my attention. As a gross oversimplification, a Feature flag is a way to activate or deactivate features in your software as you build it. It’s an excellent way to work on features but not have them appear in the end product until they are ready. There is some nuance here I’m leaving out, though, which means I’ve ticked off just about every Software Engineer in one way or another, but I think it’s enough to get the point across. 

I’m interested in hearing how Joy uses Feature Flags and maybe pick up a few tricks I can use myself!

ITSM

Getting started with asset and configuration management in Jira Service Management 

• Speakers: Hakan Bahadir, Kevin Patterson
• Session Type: Technical Deep Dive (Live in Vegas)
• Time: April 7, 2022 @ 3:15 PM Pacific Time

Have I mentioned that I love Configuration Management? I especially love the concept of Configuration-as-code, as seen in tools like Terraform and Ansible. The hardest part of these tools: Visualizing your deployment. 

So I’m interested in seeing how Insight’s tools might be able to help here. If for no other reason, I want to watch this session to improve my internal practices!

Atlassian ITSM: Come together right now

• Speaker: Amita Abraham, Scott Farquhar, Sherif Mansour
• Session Type: Keynote (Livestream)
• Time: April 6, 2022 @ 11:00 AM Pacific Time

I, of course, cannot miss out on this Livestream either – I highly suspect this is one where we will get some more Jira Service Management announcements. As with all the other Keynotes, if something important is announced there, you will hear about it next week as a post on this blog!

Transforming the customer request process at McKesson

• Speaker: Thomas Hardin
• Session Type: Customer User Case (Digital Experience)

Fun Fact: McKesson isn’t far away from The Jira Guy HQ! So, I’m super excited to see a local Jira Admin featured in a session! Thomas will be going over how they leveraged Jira Service Management to improve support for hundreds of customers in critical healthcare applications! I definitely will be looking at how I can apply some of the tricks with my internal customers!

Open Work Management

Move fast, don’t break things: Features releases with Work Management

• Speaker: Jenny Marshall
• Session Type: Teamwork Culture use case ( Live in Vegas)
• Time: April 7, 2022 @ 2:00 PM Pacific Time

So, I’m just going to say it. I’ve always hated the mantra “Move Fast and Break Things.” Tech Blasphemy, I know. But, while I get its purpose and meaning, it’s too easy to misinterpret as an excuse to be sloppy.  

Jenny will be talking about how they’ve done away with that at Trello while discussing their methods to consistently build and release great features for their users (of which I am one!). 

Work differently, together: A new vision for Work Management

• Speakers: Mike Cannon-Brooks, Jeff Redfern, Erika Trautman
• Session Type: Keynote (Livestream)
• Time: April 6, 2022 @ 9:30 AM Pacific Time

Yep, another Keynote. However, this centers around Jira Work Management, so I also hope to find a few new nuggets to share with you next week! The title makes me curious; what exactly are they planning for JWM? Its premise has always been that different teams have different work requirements, so I wonder where they take the concept? We’ll find out next week!

How remote teams maximize live collaboration

• Speakers: Laïla von Alvensleben, Adriana Roche
• Session Type: Teamwork Culture use case (Digital Experience)

Something the vast majority of us have had to get used to over the past few years is remote collaboration. But, as my team is discovering, this problem can be compounded as your team grows beyond one timezone or continent! In this talk, Laïla and Adriana will be discussing how their team uses Confluence to overcome the timezone gap to allow their teams to collaborate asynchronously. 

Teamwork Culture

Interpersonal alchemy: the magic behind high-performing teams

• Speaker: Mark Cruth
• Session type: Teamwork Culture Use Case (Live in Vegas)
• Time: April 7, 2022 @ 11:15 AM Pacific

We’ve all seen the trope in movies. You have a group of people who, at best, don’t know each other but, more often than not, actually hate each other. However, on their own, they have no hope of winning the competition/restoring the community center/stopping the bad guy/saving the world. However, the power of a montage and some music allows them to congeal into a team that can win the day!

In reality, getting a group of individuals to mesh into something more is a bit trickier than using an ’80s power ballad. So, in this talk, Mark goes into the alchemy Atlassian uses to achieve this result and create high-performing teams. 

Developing the rituals that define great teams

• Speaker: Shishir Mehrotra
• Session Type: Teamwork Culture use case (Digital Experience)

Alchemy, rituals…Is Atlassian turning into a cult? Nope! Instead, Shishir will discuss the habits and events that help teams feel included in building great products, collaborating better both within the team and with other teams, and achieve great things!

Flow: Find focus and eliminate digital distractions

• Speaker: Cindy Yip, Dan Ivory
• Session Type: Teamwork Culture use case (Digital Experience)

Adaptavist started us off, so it seems fitting they also finish out this article. In this talk, Cindy and Dan discuss the concept of “Flow,” how to achieve this peak focus state and how to avoid distractions that can help you get there!

What do you think?

Are you going to be in Vegas this year, or will you be watching it Virtual? Which sessions are you looking forward to? Let me know in a comment!

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As a programming note, I…don’t exactly know when I’ll be posting next week’s articles. Honestly, Atlassian’s explosions of Keynotes have rendered my usual methods of team ’22 a bit pointless. But rest assured, if Atlassian announces anything, I’ll be here to cover it!

But until next time, my name is Rodney, asking, “Have you updated your Jira issues today?”