I’m not 100% sure, but I’m starting to think that the moment a team or organisation introduces the JIRA / Confluence combo as tools to manage non-development teams, it is probably the moment to consider renegotiating a fixed deliverables contract with periodic checkpoints (to limit daily micro-management which JIRA can encourage), or to simply walk away…
The blanket introduction of such tools across all workers probably says more about a process led, controlling culture interested in tasks and time rather than value and output. And I haven’t even mentioned what it may mean to respecting differences between people and their individual values. There are not many times (any?) where I’ve seen the mass rollout of JIRA / Confluence actually improve the output of a team, over and above what they could do without it.
Perhaps an interview question I might consider in the future may be along the lines of…
Q: “Do you use JIRA for tracking non-development work?”
A: “Yes, we do”
Q: “How’s that working out for you and your staff?”
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Frank Ray & Associates is a software engineering consultancy that builds high quality software for businesses. |