Do More With Less

From Confusion to Order

With Atlassian

Ivelin Andreev, Svetoslav Petkov

• Where are we?

Levels of Knowledge

Focus the Business Need = Success

• Know what you do

• Know how is success measured

• Focus accordingly

• How do you build?

• Fundamental mistakes

– No scope (it will be LIKE… with SOME changes)

– No current state - accumulative documentation

– No traceable history of communication channels

– No prototypes, late “Go Live”

– Changes on the run

• The result

– Four major refactorings

– 2 years, 8800 m/h development

The Need of Change

What did we Need

• Better process and appropriate tools

• Goals

– Early scope definition

– Improved and traceable communication

– Predictable and efficient resource management

– Measurement of progress - Deliver Quality (what, when)

– Change management

– Transparency for the client

– Customer orientation

• Document Management System

• Key Features

– Spaces, Pages, News, Files, Comments

– History and change tracking

– Notifications/Watches

– Search – hierarchy, labels, full text

– Import/Export – XML, PDF, HTML, MS Word

– Integration – Jira, SharePoint, full SOAP/XML interface

– Designed for enterprise

Atlassian Confluence

Confluence Project Space

• Issue & Time tracking system

• Key Features– Change log

– Components and versions, roadmap

– Notifications – create, update, assign

– Import from Bugzilla, Excel, MS Project, CSV

– Flexible – users, groups, permissions

– Reports

• issues by status & priority

• estimated vs actual time taken

• number of issues per project and period

• release notes

Atlassian JIRA - Who does what

Issues

• Issue types - Bug, Feature, Task, Improvement, Question, Specification

– Customizable fields

– Customizable workflow

– Validation of transitions

– Automated events on transition

– Linking

– Tasks – management, analysis, estimation

JIRA Dashboards

Project Guide

• Since 01 January 2009

• Iteration based – 4 weeks, fixed release date

• Documentation

– Unique ID, Template based

– Hierarchical (Dynamic Product Backlog) stored in Confluence ONLY

• Initial – early stage, kick off meeting

• Preliminary – main functional requirements

• Approved – detailed, commented and labeled

• Iteration planning

• Iteration plan and estimate approval

• Daily meetings

Development Cycle

Execution & Change Management

Weeks 1 - 3

• Prioritized list of issues

• Daily SCRUM meetings

• Meeting Reports

Week 4

• Testing, Bugfixing, Refactoring

• Discussion of next iteration

Changes

• Preliminary Specification – Comments

• Approved Specification – Jira Question

Release

• TL assures specification items

• Critical bugs are fixed

• Create release notes report

• Publish news item for the update

Time Tracking & Reporting

• Time Tracking– Start Progress

– Assure issue has initial estimate

– Always comment what is done and what has left

– Stop progress and set status

• Weekly reports– Time spent per project

– Time spent per issue/person

– Week plan

– Project plan – 3 months ahead

Open Problems

• Major– Long distance communication (Customer, Manager, ICB)

– Long term (3-6 months) planning changes weekly

– Long release planning and discussions – 2-3 weeks

– Yet small scope knowledge (1 iteration)

– Requirement changes in next iteration

– Single point communication

• Minor– Multiple environments (Dev, Test, Stage, Production)

– External interference with application data

– Many simultaneous projects

– Redundant reporting - Jira and Project Tracker

Questions?