How to Conduct a New Jira Project Team Interview

The best way to understand how a team operates and plans to use Jira is by interviewing the team lead.  Here’s how to conduct a good initial interview.

Interview Objectives

The application administrator should uncover and understand the following:

• Is a new project needed or can an existing project be leveraged?
  • Example:  The Email Marketing Team wants to use Jira.  Can they use the existing Marketing Team’s project or do they need a separate project (special configuration) of their own?
• What are the reporting requirements?  What data points are important to track?
• Are new schemes or assets needed?  (Ex:  a new custom workflow, a custom field, etc.)
• Who will maintain the project-level settings, serve as the primary contact for all project related questions, triage and monitor issues, and groom the backlog?

The requestor or team lead should:

• Understand, at a high level, the type of problems Jira can solve
• Receive answers to any “can Jira do X” questions
• Provide an example of a common request and how the team completes work

Best Practices

   DO

• Keep the conversation high-level.  This is an info collection meeting, not a Jira demo.
• Listen more than you talk
• Learn the team’s process for a typical initiative
• Collect team reporting goals and specific data to track
• Choose terminology wisely.  For example, a “project” is a collection of issues to a Jira administrator, but a “project” is something to work on to a team lead.

 DON’T

• Demo Jira.  This is a fact finding session.  Concentrate on listening, not clicking around Jira or hosting a “show and tell.”
• Lose focus or discuss low level topics.  This is not the time to ask:  What is your version number format?  What board column will status X map to?
• Use industry or “Jira jargon” that’s unfamiliar to your audience
• Discuss methodology.  Jira can support any or no methodology.
• Click around the Jira application admin area.  This is confusing and extraneous info for non application admins.

Interview Questions

 Download the “Worksheet:  Jira New Project Interview” at:  jirastrategy.com/link/project-interview.

Next Steps

1. Identify a team to onboard to Jira.
2. Interview the team lead to see how Jira might help them track their work and automate manual tasks.
3. Create a basic Jira project to get the team started.  The project can be enhanced or further customized as the need arises.