Jira is one of the flagship products in the Atlassian stack. And it’s super popular. Atlassian adoption is going up in companies around the world – and more users than ever are going beyond the standard functionality that Jira offers. Custom Atlassian tools give admins more control – and with Jira, opportunities for admins to enhance the way their organisations work on the platform are always present.
Imagine, if you will, that you have a garden – with a beautiful old brick wall that circles it. One day, you discover a crack running between the old brickwork, which otherwise seems solid and immovable. It wasn’t there before, but it doesn’t look too bad. The wall’s in great shape otherwise – so you decide to patch it up. You drill and chisel out the old mortar, and replace it with new mortar. Good as new. Fast forward a couple of weeks, and the crack’s back.
Leading software developers Atlassian produce a suite of valuable products, and probably the two most important and popular are Jira and Confluence. Both these pieces of software are used by organisations of all sizes to simplify their working environment and allow their staff to be more productive day-to-day. If you are interested in making use of them, it is important to understand what these products are best for, as well as any drawbacks they might have.
If you’ve worked in software development long enough, you’ll have lived through at least one “ropey” version release. It could be version 2, or version 12 – but generally, the more complex a system gets over time, and the more features are added, the more likely you are to encounter an issue with a version launch.
Moving towards Agile has become something of a trend in business today. It’s an attractive model; lean, but incredibly effective. No wonder more businesses want to adopt Agile. But for software companies, IT companies and development teams, it’s kind of been the only way to work. And many have learned, sometimes the hard way, that it’s not so much a transformation as it is a transition. It takes time. It takes dedication.
This blog is a safe space – so let’s just say it. DevOps is hard work and boring. There. We said it. To most people in tech and software, DevOps is tedium and busywork that gets in the way of the “real” work – making software. This is why it’s often left by the wayside, or done improperly. So, what if we told you that if you got it right, your job would be better, more fun, your business more profitable – all that kind of pie in the sky fantasy stuff?
If you upgrade your phone every year or two, you’re not alone. If your company regularly renews tech contracts and gives you the latest laptop to take home – and if you’re lucky enough to drive an electric car – well, good for you! But there’s a catch. And it’s huge. Laptops, phones and electric cars need batteries. Extracting the lithium and other rare metals required to make those batteries is resource intensive. Sometimes dangerous.
Back in 2018, we thought that the biggest change in employment would be the gig economy. That was before the pandemic. Before furlough, before remote working became the norm, before homeschooling and the massive tip in balance brought on by a killer virus. The biggest shift in employment was yet to come. And it wasn’t the remote life; it was The Great Resignation. It’s still happening – accelerating, even – and it’s got businesses worried.
Stress kills. Here’s the proof. And most of it can be avoided. But in the workplace, we put way too much emphasis on the task, and not the goal; on being busy rather than being successful. We say “yes” to more than we should, building our stresses. Why? Because we’re human. We’re social creatures, wired to please others and reap the rewards of acceptance. But if we say yes to everything, we’re probably going to start dropping the ball. A lot.
When you’re working towards SMART goals, you’ve got to be able to measure the impact your efforts are having. In fact, that’s what the M in SMART goals stands for. In Agile teams and DevOps, measuring performance is critical to quantifying the impact of your team’s work. And, without measuring how things are today, it will be impossible to know whether all our hard work will actually make any difference in the future.
