The Loudest Man working for the Quietest Company 🤫 Did NDCS make a massive mistake with Jira? 🤔
Opening Pandora's Box
Last year when I was Moderator for this forum group, I had the great pleasure to work with the National Deaf Children's Society on two blogs:
- A World Without Barriers: How NDCS is Transforming Futures for Deaf Children
- Jira is Our Love Language: How NDCS is Empowered by the Atlassian stack
What this autumnal initiative lead to was a budding relationship between two overtly-enthusiastic individuals: myself and @Hollie_Gale ! ⭐️🎉
Over the months following the blogs we kept in contact and chatted a lot about Atlassian and the possibilities, and most especially: DASHBORDS 📊📈🥧🤤
At some point it became apparant that NDCS needed to go to the next-level with their Jira game, at the same time that I was looking to do more with my charitable activities as part of Pledge1%.
It was then that I asked Holie if I could work some hours a week for NDCS as a technical consultant on Pro Bono basis. She was intrigued... they'd never worked with a technical partner before.
The temptation was too great.. she went internally asking if it was possible... and she lifted the lid and had a peak inside.
The greatest mistake a company could have made
After some additional calls with colleagues and a final call with her Chapter Lead, it was decided to bring me on a few hours a week and help ramp Jira up to the next-level, and I started in March of this year!
What followed there after could probably quite easily be described as "All hell breaking loose!", and in her own words reflecting back on it all last month:
Andy, you know I shoot straight so I'm gonna be honest: when you first pitched this, I thought "sure, why not - what could go wrong..." #famouslastwords
I did not fully appreciate that I was essentially handing a creative genius a set of keys and saying "go wild!"The Go!Jira team have not forgiven me. I stand by my decision.
You don't bring one idea — you bring one thousand, laminated, even 🌈 colour-coded, and already halfway implemented before anyone's finished their coffee.
No blocker stops you. No org labyrinth confuses you (even ours!). You treat problems like puzzles and bureaucracy like it's a suggestion.
You've brought energy, humour, positive chaos and more value than we could ever put a number on (trust me, we tried, the spreadsheet broke, Stuart got angry, it all ended in tears)...Working with you has been an absolute blast. NDCS is better for it. The children and families we support are better for it. The Go!Jira team are… well, coping. Beautifully.
Thank you Andy. Pandora sends her regards. 🙌😂
It's difficult for a company that has never worked with Pro Bono tech consultants before, to suddenly bring in one of the most uncontrollable, most incorrigible, most loud people in the world the world, hand them the keys to the castle, and then pray for the best.
But many months on, the results speak for themselves. The greatest mistake NDCS could have made? Not opening Pandora's Box and having a peak...
Five months later...
Time flies when you're having fun! When I initially agreed a tenure of 14 weeks and just 3 hours a week, I could never have imaged the huge rabbit hole I was rocketing down. Like with any company and their Atlassian Stack, the whole goes real deep.
And whilst my hours at times go way over 8 or even 10 hours per week, it's highly rewarding and the team is achieving so much!
In this time I have helped introduce some serious US upgrades with the stack through major Proof of Concepts:
- Jira Goals - fully aligned to the Objectives of the Annual Planning
- Jira Plans - reflecting the high-level Program work, as as well as Platform Lead initiatives
- Dashboards - loads and loads of Dashboards, and according to specific requirements. Dashboards for delivery teams. Dashboards for regular Chapter work. Dashboards for individuals. And more...
- And now Roadmaps and JPD have landed on my plate too. Exciting!
With all the POC stuff behind us, and the most important stakeholders buy-in achieved the last few weeks, it's now going to be a really busy summer as we push to that next level and deploy everything org-wide.
And before the summer is out though, I'll do a more technical blog on those POCs to help Atlassian Foundation customers get inspired to also push themselves to the next level, and if you have any burning questions you'd like answered in the meantime, don't be scared: ask below in the comments! I'd be more than happy to answer them.
Never be afraid to open Pandora's Box and peak inside!
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Andy _ Fun Inc
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