What is the best way to manage a content factory using Jira?

[Gerardo Tapia]

I have a complex workflow to produce content that involves video, metadata and images; each part of this content is prepared by a different team and involves different steps on each workflow. I would like to have a board to keep tracking of all these content, status, reports, delays, etc

What kind of Jira Project will be the best to achieve these goals?

[John Funk · Accepted solution]

Hi Gerardo - Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

We are using Classic Software projects to do the same thing. The workflow is really long and has lots of statuses in it, but it works. 

[Gerardo Tapia]

thanks John! 

Quick question.. how do you handle parallel step/status in the workflow, or all the workflow should be designed as a linear path?

Thanks! 

[John Funk]

Well, that is a little more complicated, but basically we do have a flexible path. 

So Status A can go to either Status B or Status C. We control which transition they see by use a custom field that they select values for. It is a checkbox field that we call Flex Path. 

So Flex Path has values like Write Copy, Visual Design, Copyediting, etc. So if Status B is Write Copy and Status C is Visual Design, then it will depend on the value(s) for the Flex Path field. If Write Copy is selected, then the user sees the transition to Status B but not Status C. 

And vice versa if Visual Design is selected but Write Copy is not. 

So we use a series of transitions between statuses with conditions based on the values in the Flex Path field. 

I hope that makes sense. 

[Gerardo Tapia]

Awesome!!! What I am seeing is that the key is in the correct definition of the workflow and their transitions.

Thanks for your time!!

[John Funk]

Yep - all depends on the conditions on the transitions. I am planning on doing a talk for the Boston Atlassian User group on April 7 on flexible workflows. I will have some graphics and things for that. Ping me after that and I can share. :-)

[Gerardo Tapia]

Cool!!! I will do it!! I am really interested in applying best practices with my operations team!

Thanks for your help and kindness

[Gerardo Tapia]

Hi John!

I hope this finds you well!

Following up our last conversation, is it possible for you to share the material you presented about flexible workflows?

Another thing, I am having some "concerns" from people in the company because I am planning to use Jira as this tool to control the Content production workflow, and have some questions about why using Jira instead of toos to manage resources... in your experience.. what do you think that could be a justification for questions lijke that? I would like to understand more your workflow to mentioned as a sucessfull use case of doing it in this way.

Thanks for any feedback you can provide me

Sincerely,

[John Funk]

https://bostonace.slack.com/files/U0196UZN7C2/F01TM0UDS3U/flexible_workflows_presentation.pptx

See it that works for you.  :-)

[John Funk]

Basically on the justification front, Jira is a work management tool - probably the best out there. Producing content is really just a work management process. So why not use the best tool to do that? 

[Gerardo Tapia]

I agree with you!! 100%! but, the team here have the impression that Jira is only for Devops teams.. i disagree on that, because what we are looking for is to manage the process/workflow and I am designing some integrations with our backend systems via webhooks and APIs! that will bring huge automatizations managed within the process.  I think.. i will need to create a POC to probe my point here and show all the potential we have with JIra!

I cannot access the pptx, because I do not have access to bostonace.slack.com is it possible to share it in some other way?

Thanks!

[John Funk]

Let me know if I can help with your POC. Send me an email at 

john.funk@ramseysolutions.com  and I will send you the PowerPoint.