Comment by nomel
2 hours ago
I require Jira for all my work to protect myself from three things, definitely not productivity:
1. µManagement asking "What have you even been doing?" Now they have a dashboard, and I have a nice record.
2. Protect me from people who wouldn't tell me problems existed, but would tell their managers they were blocked by those problems. Now, the understanding is that if the Jira doesn't exist, then the problem doesn't exist.
3. I use the "On Hold" state of an issue for a clear signal, for them and their managers that I add as watchers, that there will be no progress until whatever requirement is met (question answered, etc). It dramatically decreases response times, and means I don't have to nag them. Goes back to #2, where I can point out that they are blocking themselves.
All these things come into existence because people are so bad at collaborating, but really good at pointing fingers.
This is a good way of using a ticket tracker: bottom-up, where engineers, testers, and other stakeholders are empowered to create and manage tickets as a means of communicating about their work and what they are blocked on. It's part of the writing culture mentioned in TFA.
In some places, the ticket tracker works top-down: only the manager creates tickets, and the manager makes measurements about tickets closed, velocity, and so on to assess the productivity of their team.
I think the great divide on JIRA and JIRA-likes often comes down to which culture people have been exposed to.