Jira and Confluence: A Case Study in Productivity and Collaboration Tools in Academic Information Technology

Jira™ and Confluence™:
A Case Study in Productivity and Collaboration Tools
in Academic Information Technology

                    Presenters:
                     Brett Miller
                  Michael Warden
                 Vince Chmielewski

Who Are We?

   Medical School Information
        Research              Services
                           Administration
                         Medical School
                          Information
                            Services

              Service                            Clinical

                        MSIS Administration
 Software Developers                             Helpdesk and Business
                        Technical Services (9)
         (25)                                        Operations (10)

Your Presenters Today

 • Brett Miller
    – Programmer/Analyst Supervisor
 • Michael Warden
    – Business Analyst
 • Vince Chmielewski
    – Applications Programmer/Analyst Senior
                       MSIS Administration
 Software Developers    Technical Services   Helpdesk and Business
       (Vince)                (Brett)         Operations (Michael)

What We’ll Be Covering
 1. How we got started using issue tracking and     Brett
    collaboration tools internally

 2. Moving these tools out into the enterprise      Michael

 3. Sustaining growth and customization             Vince

                            MSIS Administration
 Software Developers         Technical Services   Helpdesk and Business
       (Vince)                     (Brett)         Operations (Michael)

Disclaimer

 • We are not promoting specific tools (Jira or
    Confluence)
 • Instead we are relating our experiences with the
    tools that we selected
 • Similar features in other tools could be used to
    achieve the results that we experienced

Common IT Organization Needs

       t i s b e ing
   Wha
   done?

                       Issue Management
                       Tight budgets   Multiple Projects

        u c h t ime
  How m king?
         ta                                     Where are
  are we                                                   we
                                                spending
                                                         time?

Common IT Organization Needs
    Institutional         Knowledge
     Knowledge      +      Transfer

   When someone leaves, knowledge leaves
    with them
   Preserve your assets!
   How does a new person become
    productive?
   Make specialized knowledge accessible

The tools we selected:

Jira: Selection Process

 • We selected our tools in 2004
 • Chose Jira after considering alternatives (i.e., Bugzilla)

 Primary Benefits:
 •No exhaustive evaluations needed
 (low cost/low risk)
 •Compatible with infrastructure
 •Lots of ‘buzz’
 •We considered a few alternatives,
 such as Bugzilla

Jira: Adoption

 • Not everyone adapted right away
 • Started with one or two groups
 • Director had to encourage adoption for all
   groups to buy in

            • Slow adoption of features like
              the customized “dashboard” or
              time tracking

Jira: Outcomes
 • Both managers and developers
   have a clear idea of what needs
   to be done
 • Retain history of the work we are
   doing
 • We know where we are spending
   our time. (If you recharge for
   services, you have to have this
   data)
 • We also created external
   reports external for analysis

Jira: End User Support

 • Not all applications are supported by
   the Helpdesk
 • How do you support your users?
  – Email direct to Jira Issue tracking
  – Give users a button to click for help
  – Pool of developers receives email
    when a customer has an issue
  – No “dropped” issues

The tools we selected:

And now for the Wiki

 • One of the tools that we found most useful
   was almost an afterthought
 • One of our associate directors thought that
   Confluence would be a good idea, so we
   bought it at the same time…

   … and it set on the shelf for about a year.

(But First a Word About Tech Services)

 • Responsible for
   – Servers
   – Storage
   – Networking
 • Large amounts of information
   shared between people
 • Distributed staff (in Hong Kong!)

Confluence: Adoption

 • Jira adoption in development was top-
    down and needed to be urged on
 • Confluence growth in Tech Services was
    bottom-up
 • Management didn’t force adoption
 • It met needs at the right time
          Jira:                 Confluence:
    Methodical Growth     Explosive, Organic Growth

Confulence: Adoption (cont)
• Vital information - easily accessible:
   – How do you provision a new server?
   – What’s the shutdown procedure for this machine?
   – What does this subnet look like?
   – Where is this device physically located?
   – What vendor do we contact when something goes
     wrong with this device?
• Where do you store this information?
• How do you find it?

Usage by Tech Services

Confluence: Adoption (cont)
• Technical Services staff recorded everything they
  did
   – Maintained work “blogs”
   – Passed tasks/information to the next person
   – Allowed “rolling support”

• Expanded to use of labels and tags for
  more flexible information
   – Enabled much more dynamic usage
   – Utilized advanced macro features

Usage by Tech Services

Confluence: Adoption (cont)
• Drove adoption of higher-level plugins
  • Gliffy
  • Advanced table formatting

Next Stop: The Enterprise

 • MSIS needs are met – but can this help
   elsewhere?
 • The answer: Yes!
 • Next up with Michael Warden: Confluence
   and Jira “escape” from MSIS

Agenda
 1. How we got started using issue tracking and     Brett
    collaboration tools internally

 2. Moving these tools out into the enterprise      Michael

 3. Sustaining growth and customization             Vince

                           MSIS Administration
 Software Developers        Technical Services    Helpdesk and Business
       (Vince)                    (Brett)          Operations (Michael)

Common IT Organizational Needs

       t i s b e ing
   Wha
   done?

                       Issue Management
                       Tight budgets   Multiple Projects

        u c h t ime
  How m king?
         ta                                     Where are
  are we                                                   we
                                                spending
                                                         time?

Opportunities for expansion…
 • Similar needs
   –   real time collaboration
   –   document sharing
   –   remote access
   –   version control
   –   history
 • Similar challenges
   – weaknesses of shared drives
   – work silos
   – organizational knowledge vs. generational turnover

… but, threats to adoption
 •   Different comfort level with technology
 •   Adoption is by opt-in only
 •   Support model was undefined and untested
 •   Less control over use of ‘new’ features
     – Plugins - Gliffy, Adaptavist
     – Office/Sharepoint Connector
     – Non-standard computing platforms

Leveraging Momentum

 • Build on interest for related initiatives:
    – Green IT initiatives
    – Remote working/telecommuting
    – Offsite access (without VPN)
    – Pandemic planning
    – Innovation grants

Leveraging Momentum (cont)

  • Snowball effect
    – Motivated adopters increase collaboration
    – 90/9/1 pattern* (Lurkers, Contributors,
      Drivers)
    – Success stories of other uses
    – “how else could you do this?”

                         * From wikipatterns.com

Leveraging Momentum (cont)

  • Lean Healthcare
    – Standardized Work
    – Visible Workflow
    – Continuous improvement through small
      experiments
    – Fix in place

Leveraging Momentum (cont)

  • Collaboration/Web 2.0
    – Can embed Google Gadgets, YouTube,
      Vimeo, Twitter feeds
    – Consistent tool that still leverages ongoing
      development of the web
    – Confluence 3.0 incorporates even more
      social media features

Agenda
 1. How we got started using issue tracking and     Brett
    collaboration tools internally

 2. Moving these tools out into the enterprise      Michael

 3. Sustaining growth and customization             Vince

                            MSIS Administration
 Software Developers         Technical Services   Helpdesk and Business
       (Vince)                     (Brett)         Operations (Michael)

Now What?
 •   Burden of Maintenance
 •   Reducing Costs
 •   Extracting Benefits
 •   Ongoing Issues

Burden of Maintenance
Issues:
• Growing User Demand
• Decreasing Level of IT Comfort as Usage Expands

Solutions:
•   Tiered Support
•   Automated Support
•   User Administrators
•   Educational Materials, Videos and Monthly Sessions

Reducing Cost
 Issues:
 • Needed to make the cost as low or neutral as
   possible
 Solutions:
 • Build expertise into programs and people through
   reproducible resources (videos, tutorials)
 • Leverage pre-created content from vendors
 • Only expend resources to increase adoption or
   broad knowledge levels
 • Virtual Machines

Extracting Benefits
 •   Easy to adopt or try for any unit (low barriers to entry)
 •   Open to competition - easy to export and archive pages
 •   Easy to adapt
 •   Able to accept tasks that we said ‘no’ to in the past
 •   Can tie in with our IT process and data

Benefits: Jira Customization

 • Custom Workflows
   – Compliance Management of Incidents

Benefits: Jira Customization

 • Solutions for mid-tier business problems
   – IRBMED Help Desk

Benefits: Confluence Customization

 • Customization is directed by the end user
 • Macros and Templates enable user-driven
   application to unique problems
 • More visual customization:
   – Adaptavist

Ongoing Issues

                 • Conflicting Priorities
                 • Level of Control
                 • Rampant growth
                   beyond our
                   customer base

Questions?