Gânduri Eclectice – Eclectic Thoughts

Many of us will, at least some of the time and on certain contracts or projects, end up using Jira. As most will know (if they’re still reading), Jira is a ticketing system for issue & problem tracking, often used alongside Confluence, both of these from Atlassian.

Recently I’ve been pondering various different Jira systems that I have encountered across many different organisations and projects. The experience has varied, for many reasons. Some bad, some worse, some sublime, more often ridiculous. Rarely have I met one that was a joy to use, sadly, but It Does Not Need To Be This Way™.

As with most capable software, it is highly configurable which gives one a lot of flexibility, and flexibility is good, right? Well yes & no. The more flexible a system’s configuration, the greater are the opportunities for making the system difficult to use rather than easier. In particular, with Jira, an administrator can (for example) configure the system such that it can produce extremely useful management reporting information, for tracking resource usage, project progress etc, but (without necessarily realising this) turn it into a nightmare experience for the actual users.

TL;DR: caveat configuratione¹. If you don’t involve the “normal users” in discussions about configuration choices, then it’s unlikely to turn out well. I deliberately use the term “normal users” to emphasise that these need to be the least privileged users; these are probably in the majority, and will be least able to work around any painful configuration choices imposed upon them. Users with more privilege, even only a limited amount of privilege, will tend to regard themselves as “normal users” and assume that their experience will match that of the actual “normal users” – it does not – and unfortunately (from my own observations) it tends to be this type of user (people managing teams or with various other responsibilities) that is included in the disussions about workflow and other configuration / usage choices.

So, apropos of nothing in particular, for anyone who has been through Jira Ticket Hell at some point…

Youtube link so that you can sing along (if you’re too young to remember 1983’s chart) to White Lines Jira Tickets – Don’t Do It by Grandmaster Atlassian & Melle “Jira” Mel

Jira Tickets!

(Bass!)
Ooh Ji-ra
(Ooh Ji-ra) Vision dreams of passion
(Blowin' through my mind) and all the while I think of you
(High fry) a very strange reaction
(For us to unwind) the more I see, the more I do
(Something like a phenomenon) Baby!
(Tellin' your body to come along, but Jira tickets blow away)
(Blow! Rock it! Blow!)

Ticket to ride, Jira highway
Tell all your friends, they can go my way
Pay your toll, sell your soul
Pound for pound costs more than gold
The longer you stay, the more you pay
My Jira tickets go a long way
Either up your nose or through your vein
With nothin to gain except killin' your brain

(Freeze! Blocked! Freeze! Blocked! Freeze! Blocked! Freeze! Blocked!)
(Blow!)
(Ahhh) Higher, baby
(Ahhh) Get higher, baby!
(Ahhh) Get higher, baby!
And don't ever come down! (Backlog!)

Rang dang diggedy dang di-dang
Rang dang diggedy dang di-dang
Rang dang diggedy dang di-dang
Diggedy dang di-dang diggedy dang di-dang

(CI/CD Pipeline) pure as the driven snow
(Connected to my mind) and now I'm havin' fun, baby!
(High fry) it's getting kinda low
(Cause it makes you feel so nice) I need some one-on-one, baby!
(Don't let it blow your mind away) Baby!
(And go into your little hideaway 'cause Jira tickets blow away)
(Blow!)

A million magic tickets, painted pure and white
A multi-million tickets almost overnight
Twice as sweet as sugar, twice as bitter as salt
And if you get hooked, baby, it's nobody else's fault, so don't do it!

(Freeze! Blocked! Freeze! Blocked! Freeze! Blocked! Freeze! Blocked!)
Raah! (Blow!)
(Ahhh) Higher, baby
(Ahhh) Get higher, baby!
(Ahhh) Get higher, baby!
And don't ever come down! (Backlog!)

(Don't you get too high) don't you get too high baby!
(Turns you on) you really turn me on and on
(When you gonna come down) my temperature is risin'
(When the thrill is gone) no, I don't want you to go

(etc)

1. Excuse poor Latin. Basically, beware the configuration ↩︎