Documentation of a JIRA implementation

Alexandre Thouin

Hi everyone,

We'll be starting to implement JIRA in our company. We made first step with a consultant who gave us a report on different workflow we could/should implement. 

My question is, for all those who made a similar journey, what the best way to document our implementation so that it could be use to understand tomorrow ours decisions of today ?

Also, do you have pointers for a great implementation ? Like begginer's tips ?

Thanks to all of you !

Merle Fischer

Hi Alexandre,

when you create Jira projects, you will be tempted to create Porjects by clicking on the template images in the create project dialogue... this is maybe fine for the very first project for testing things out. But for the future there is an option at the bototm of that create porject wizard that let's you create projects with shared configurations. Otherwise Jira will create new schemes for every new project created via the templates, regardless of them actually using the same workflows/screenschemes etc. and your admin panel will be cluttered with the same workflows/workflow schemes under mildly differen names. So make sure you have projects share configurations when they use the same schemes

The cleanup of this can be quite annoying down the line.

As for the documentation it really depends on how restrictive your workflows will be for users. If they have lots of validators, conditions etc. make sure your users have explanations for what they are allowed ot do and what not. Personally in my experience, if it's not needed in the beginning, design more flexible workflows that are less restrictive, users will get a lot les frustrated and you will have less explaining to do, you can always introduce things down the line when people are more familiar with the tool.

Also train people in the use of the tool in a test project, that works better than letting them read a bunch of explanations and subsequently make them work with the tool straight away (even though it's good to have them, so maybe create a training plan with excercises that also future employees that need to learn the tool can use as guidance)

Hope this gives you some pointers, best

Merle