Background
COVID-19 exposed the need to reevaluate how we fundamentally approach and accomplish UX, technical and web development-related work.
The success of digital transformation initiatives is critical to achieving strategic goals throughout the organization. Process improvements supported by a project management tool configured to meet our unique needs can help optimize department resources, streamline workflows and enable reporting to track progress, productivity, and ensure nothing slips.
Reference materials:
Why Jira? Really, the question is, “Why Atlassian?”
Atlassian is an enterprise software company that develops products for software development, project management, and content management. It is best known for its issue tracking application Jira, and its team collaboration and wiki product Confluence.
Scope
Implement process improvements that are optimized for the current remote work environment.
Implement a suite of tools for project management, resource management and capacity planning.
Take a phased approach to implementing tool use by the entire marketing team.
Roadmap phases, measuring results at a regular frequency and setting goals for process, workflow and feature improvements at designated milestones.
Since not all projects are in Jira yet, we created a project that holds generic tasks that can be used for time tracking. The project is called “Tempo Time Tracking” or “TIME”.
View project here: Tempo Time Tracking
This project contains:
Meetings (by company: CDA, TDIC, TDIC, TDIC, etc.)
Admin time (same as meetings)
PTO
Professional Development
Generic “Design” tasks by stakeholder (CDA Presents, Practice Support, etc. Use if you are a member of the design team, no matter what type of task)
Generic “Content” tasks by stakeholder (use if you are a member of the content team, no matter what type of task )
If you aren’t sure where something goes, or if this list is missing items, please let us know.
Last week we had an initial training in the system. This week, we are looking for feedback as we try to build out Jira in the way that it can be most helpful to the team. This means we need everyone to be doing the following this week (6/15-6/19):
Tracking time in Tempo daily. If you do not know where to attach your time, please ask someone soon so we can correct for everyone.
Experimenting with the Jira tool for project management. This week we do not expect that people know how to use the tool fully, and there will probably be questions. Please use this week to identify where you need help so that we can figure out how to best use our training time. This week please get familiar with:
Locating your tasks: Getting Started: Jira, Tempo, and Confluence
Adding tasks: Request Intake Process
Attaching files to tasks and comments
Commenting on tasks and looping others in using the @name tag
Questions Asked Recently:
Q: How do I know when to start my task?
A: Do not start tasks that are in “Backlog” status. Backlog is like a parking lot for tasks that are still being planned. These tickets may not yet be fully complete and ready to work on. When tasks are actively being planned, they will be in “Planning” status. Similar to how we used Basecamp, you should receive email notifications when someone comments on a ticket that pieces are approved and ready to go. We do not yet have automations in Jira so this is all manual at this point and you will need to tag your colleagues in tickets if you need information or are not sure what to start.
Q: I see a task assigned to me but it is blank, How do I see the information about the task and the other people who are working on it?
A: There are breadcrumbs available on each task or sub-task view. Click back through the breadcrumbs to get to the parent item. Project details should be available in the “
Q: Where do I see project details for the main project?
A: Project details are available as “Epics.” On the right side of the task you will see a field called “Epic Link”. Click there to see the details.
Last week we had an initial training in the system. This week, we are looking for feedback as we try to build out Jira in the way that it can be most helpful to the team. This means we need everyone to be doing the following this week (6/15-6/19):
Tracking time in Tempo daily. If you do not know where to attach your time, please ask someone soon so we can correct for everyone.
Experimenting with the Jira tool for project management. This week we do not expect that people know how to use the tool fully, and there will probably be questions. Please use this week to identify where you need help so that we can figure out how to best use our training time. This week please get familiar with:
Locating your tasks: Getting Started: Jira, Tempo, and Confluence
Adding tasks: Request Intake Process
Attaching files to tasks and comments
Commenting on tasks and looping others in using the @name tag
Questions Asked Recently:
Q: How do I know when to start my task?
A: Do not start tasks that are in “Backlog” status. Backlog is like a parking lot for tasks that are still being planned. These tickets may not yet be fully complete and ready to work on. When tasks are actively being planned, they will be in “Planning” status. Similar to how we used Basecamp, you should receive email notifications when someone comments on a ticket that pieces are approved and ready to go. We do not yet have automations in Jira so this is all manual at this point and you will need to tag your colleagues in tickets if you need information or are not sure what to start.
Q: I see a task assigned to me but it is blank, How do I see the information about the task and the other people who are working on it?
A: There are breadcrumbs available on each task or sub-task view. Click back through the breadcrumbs to get to the parent item. Project details should be available in the “
Q: Where do I see project details for the main project?
A: Project details are available as “Epics.” On the right side of the task you will see a field called “Epic Link”. Click there to see the details.
Q: How do I remove myself from any emails about a project?
A: You can remove yourself from the watch list from any issue or project by clicking on the eyeball icon and removing your name from the “watch list.”
Current project health | Completed | This week (6/15) | Next week (6/22) |
|---|---|---|---|
GREEN |
|
|
|
Phase | Tasks | Timeframe |
I | Work through task types, project types, roadmap setup, and other infrastructure. Track major efforts related to Back to Practice and COVID-19, along with website tasks Track time related to these projects | June 1: Set up vendor access in Jira June 15: Track Back to Practice, COVID, and website tasks in Jira, as well as time. June 30: Review logged time report from June 15-30 |
II | Other teammates/projects begin using Jira and tracking time on tasks. Work with the team to ensure smooth transition and adjust setup as necessary. | July 15: Set up projects for publications and communications (content team projects)
|
III | Teammates begin estimating time for future work. Begin exploration of forecasting and planning app. | July 30: Set up projects for the design team
August 1-15: Set up TDIC, TDSC, Foundation, and any other Basecamp projects
|
IV | Review data and survey team. Continue iterative improvements to setup as needed. | August 16-30: Review |
Task Status
Note: Must be logged into Jira to view.