Hello Jira Guys and Gals! Can you feel that excitement in the air? Team ’24 is LESS THAN A WEEK away! The Jira Life crew and I have been preparing for this for months, and now that it’s almost here, we are ready!
In fact, Alex, Bob, and I got a sneak peek at some of what Atlassian is planning to announce – but if you want the scoop on that, you need to come back here next week.
Instead of spoilers (which would get me in trouble), let’s continue our tradition of highlighting a few sessions you should catch, whether joining us in Las Vegas or watching from the comfort of your home!
Now, here is a caveat for this year’s Team Event. Normally, I bill this as a session I will be checking out. However, I spent yesterday preparing my calendar, and after accounting for live streams, sessions I’m in (more on that later), and meetings I need to be at, I just don’t have time!
So these will be “Sessions I will check out once I get home!” So let’s dig into this!
Creating a workplace do-ocracy and making futurists redundant
Speaker:
Dominic Price, Work Futurist, Atlassian
If you’ve never had a chance to hear Dom speak, one thing I will tell you to prepare for is the kind of brutal honesty I’ve come to appreciate from him. In this session, he talks about how looking to the future is fine, but you need to start building that future today rather than waiting for it just to happen.
Look, it always feels like there is some new technology buzzword that is going to change everything and turn the world into a utopia or dystopia (depending on who you ask). In recent history, it’s been everything from Crypto, AI, Augmented Reality, Quantum Computing, and many, many more. I’ve even heard Jira used this “Easy fix” at one point.
But history has proven there is only one thing that actually fixes things long-term: getting your hands dirty, digging in, understanding the problem, and proposing tools, processes, and people that address those problems.
I imagine this talk is going to be along that same thread, so I’m definitely interested in hearing Dom’s take on this.
Real-time visibility into the cost of work
Speakers:
Michiko Quinones, Principal Consultant, Praecipio
Amanda Babb, Principal Architect, Praecipio
I don’t know about you, but when looking for sessions, I usually ask, “How can I apply this to my Atlassian Practice?” rather than “How can I be advertised to?” This is a good example of the former, as I’ve had this challenge more than once.
When I talk with upper Management, they usually want Jira to provide them with one of a few select pieces of information, which usually boils down to:
- What are people doing
- How much time are they spending on it
- When will they be done
- How much will it cost when it is done
I’m going to be honest: The first two are very micro-managery and usually red flags if I’m asked to have Jira provide them. But the last two are – honestly – somewhat reasonable requests. There are a bunch of plans that need to be made around when a product or feature will be ready to launch, so Management needs to know when to allocate those resources. And ultimately, the bottom line needs to be kept in mind when making these sorts of decisions. If a project is ballooning in costs to the point it no longer makes business sense, knowing that early to limit your sunk costs before they explode would be helpful.
So, I’ll be taking some notes on how they provide these details to Management. It definitely feels interesting.
How iFood tracks and resolves major incidents faster
Speakers:
Karthik Kalyanasundaram, Senior Group Product Manager, Atlassian
Eugenio Onofre, Production Support Manager, iFood
Do you know what I hate? Incidents. I’ve honestly had drills with teams where we’d practice our response to incidents on our systems to try to make sure our response is smooth, everyone knows their roles, and we can respond quickly. And that’s fine for a team, but how do you prepare an entire organization for an incident? We’ve seen a few times in recent history that Organization-Wide incidents happen, and if you are not prepared, it can be debilitating.
As Atlassian Admins, we often find ourselves involved in Incident and Disaster Recovery, as our instances are some of the most critical in organizations. Even if our system is still up, it’s the hub where recovery efforts for other systems start and information is disseminated. So, we are usually involved, one way or another, with incident planning and preparation, which means we should take any opportunity to learn more about it.
So, I’m interested in seeing what tricks iFood uses to speed up their recovery processes. Who knows, maybe I’ll take something I can use later?
Migrate and consolidate to enterprise scale with Data Center.
Speakers:
Matthew Kasper, Lead Digital Product Manager, Wells Fargo
Jack Phillips, Engineering Manager, Wells Fargo
Amy Pray, Software Engineer, Wells Fargo
Suzanne Matheu, Team Product Owner/Lead Systems Operations Engineer, Wells Fargo
When was the last time we saw a Data Center talk? It feels like we’ve been waiting a while for one. This talk is about how Wells Fargo managed to consolidate a large number of Jira Instances to help control license costs.
I mean, I get it. Atlassian keeps raising prices on Data Center—and that’s in spite of not really adding any groundbreaking features the way they do for Cloud. If you have good reason to stay on DC—like I’m sure Wells Fargo would—you’ve got to start figuring out ways to save money. One way you can do that—especially on an Enterprise License Agreement—is to limit the total number of instances you have out there.
That being said, consolidation isn’t a trivial pursuit. You are trying to reconcile disparate users, fields, permissions, and setups onto a single instance, which takes some work. So, I’m very interested in hearing how the Wells Fargo team went about this activity. Maybe I can pick up a few tricks!
So, where will I be during Team ’24?
The better question is, “Where won’t I be?” Right now, I have three panels I will be a part of. They are:
Failures and Lessons from the Atlassian Ecosystem
When: April 29th, 12:45pm
Where: Treasure Island Convention Floor, Las Vegas
I’ll be leading this panel with Brittany Joiner, Bill Wood, and Kit Friend as we discuss the different mistakes we made with Atlassian tools, How you deal with mistakes, and how you grow from them.
Automation in Jira: From limits to liberation
When: May 1st, 12:15 PM
Where: Sponsor Spotlight Sessions (Expo Floor)
Tyler will try to keep Darryl Lee, Dan Tombs, and me under control as we talk about All things automation, from A4J to Powerscripts, and everything in between. We’ve been practicing this talk for a while now, and I can say there will be a lot of insights you don’t want to miss.
#AtlassianCreators uncovered: Empowering your career and community
When: Thursday, May 2nd, 10:45 AM (Meet ‘n’ Greet immediately following)
Where: Community and Learning Lounge (Expo Floor)
This, Jira guys and gals is the one I’m most excited about. I’ve been trying to push this through for six months, and it’s really happening. Hear from me, Brittany Joiner, Alex Ortiz, Jimmy Seddon, and Nikki Závadská as Loren asks us about our Creator journey and how it has impacted our careers. As a bonus, immediately following, there will be a meet-and-greet with all of us. I will make sure we have markers, so if you want anything autographed, this is your best chance!
What do you think?
As of right now, that is where I’ll be, but I don’t imagine it staying that way for long. We will also have a number of live-streams on The Jira Life, so if you are not subscribed yet, what are you waiting for?
But until next time, my name is Rodney, asking, “Have you updated your Jira issues today?”
The Jira Guy 