Everything must come to an end. One could say that FY2018 is about to reach its resolution. (I’ll let you decide if want to mark it off as Fixed, Won’t Fix or simply Done.) The end of the year is a traditional time for stock-taking as we prepare for a fresh new start. You can apply that to your Jira application as well.
Cleaning Up Your Jira Application
Use the end of the year as an opportunity to check for and clean out stagnant Jira assets. Sometimes projects get abandoned instead of being properly closed out. This can happen when the organization’s priorities change or when teams reorganize. Sometimes an initiative that was tracked in Jira is completed and teams who are anxious to carry the momentum into the next project may forget to close out the previous one.
In the Jira Strategy Admin Workbook, Rachel Wright offers several ways to hunt down stagnant Jira projects. You can use the Project Status worksheet, available in the ProForma template library, to comb through your projects and identify ones which should be archived.
While you’re doing the high level assessment and clean up, you can encourage Project Leads to take a look at their active projects and see if any clean up needs to be done there. Rachel recommends checking for things such as:
- Accurate and useful components (and component Leads)
- Unreleased versions
- Stagnant issues (haven’t been updated in x days)
- Unassigned issues
- A neglected backlog
- An accurate listing of team members
This is also an opportunity to see if any adjustments (big or small) should be made to make the system more helpful. Are the filters, boards and dashboards useful? Could they be more useful if you made a few minor changes? Does the project configuration still fit the team’s needs? Are there any customizations that the team would like to have? Any painful processes that could be eased with the addition of the right app/plugin? Now is a good time to take a look.
What You and Jira Accomplished this Year
Year end is also an opportunity to compile and analyze a few statistics on how Jira is used within your organization. In fact, regular and thorough documentation will not only demonstrate how important Jira (and therefore the Jira support team) is to your organization, it will help you predict future needs. In addition to an Annual Report form, Rachel has also created a Jira Use and Future Predictions worksheet which will help you document Jira usage over time.
Expanding Jira to Business Teams
While you’re making those predictions, consider whether Jira could benefit more teams in your organization. Many companies use Jira or Jira Service Desk not only for software or IT support, but also to manage HR, finance and facilities related processes.
Expanding Jira to other business teams doesn’t have to be an administrative nightmare. The simple addition of forms, available through the ProForma app, means that teams can customize their processes and collect exactly the data they need without requiring new issue types, hordes of custom fields, or special configurations. You can actually simplify Jira administration even as you’re bringing more teams into Jira.