Need guidance

Question

Hi Everyone,

We are exploring JIRA service management as a tool to manage work items for our invoice processing flow. Please note that we are planning to go for JSM standard plan.

Broadly, there are 5 teams that are involved in the end-to-end process.

Team A- raises the invoice processing request
Team B - Approves the request and confirms the service
Team C - Invoice Processing team - Creates record in erp system and parks the invoice
Team D - Invoice Reviewer team - Reviews the invoice and confirms payments
Team E - Updates payment confirmation and closes the ticket

In a happy path scenario, the flow is very simple - A->B->C->D->E

However, there may be scenarios wherein B may need more info from A and hence sends the incident back to them, or E finds a missing document and send it back to B for providing the same. This to and fro of the task may happen multiple times during the lifecycle of a request.

Each individual team wants to manage and measure their own SLAs and the business owner wants to look at Overall SLAs.

A couple of questions -

1) In terms of project organization, what is the best way to manage these teams? Do I create them as different user groups and attach roles to them? or is there a better way of doing this?

2) Each of these teams has requested their specific item queues (Unassigned, In Progress, etc.). What is the best and most optimum way of defining these queues?

3) In terms of the 'status' of the task at any point, as I understand, we can broadly do New, In Progress, Pending More info, Resolved, and Closed. Since multiple teams are involved and most of these states are common to every team (like In Progress or Pending more info), what is the best way for the business owners to quickly see what is the ACTUAL status of the ticket and who is responsible?

Any help on these questions is much appreciated !!

Thanks in advace.

Kateryna_v_SaaSJet_ · Answer

Hi @jalaj gupta

The choice of "how better" depends on you because each option has a corresponding solution. If the issue's status is changed only by the relevant department, then you can configure SLAs by status. If these departments still need to be defined in Jira, Riley Sullivan has already described the organizational options.

Although another option exists: while the issue is "in progress" in a certain department, you can calculate how much time passes. This can be configured using Jira custom fields and the SLA Time and Report add-on.

My team developed the application, and I already wrote an article about configuring SLAs for teams from different time zones (there is the same logic as for departments) or exactly the use cases for different Departments.

Read the articles, and you may find it a good solution. In addition, you can use the 30-day trial to test it in your company.

Riley Sullivan · Answer

When managing the teams and workflow in JIRA Service Management (JSM) for your invoice processing flow, there are a few considerations to keep in mind. There are dozens of ways to approach this, so you will need to find what is best for your management style and for your stakeholders. Here’s is how I would approach it:

* Project Organization: There are different ways to manage teams in JSM. One approach is to create different user groups for each team and assign roles accordingly. This allows you to control access and permissions based on team responsibilities. Additionally utilizing components or issue types to differentiate teams within a single project. For example, you can assign the "Invoice Review" component to Team D, making it easier to track their tasks. Choose an approach that aligns with your preferences and ensures clarity for all stakeholders involved.
* Item Queues: To define the queues for each team, you can leverage JIRA's queue views in your JSM. Create separate queues for each team, focusing on their specific components or issue types, depending on the direction you want to go. This approach allows teams to have visibility into their respective queues and manage their work items efficiently. Consider incorporating automation rules to streamline the movement of tasks between queues/teams as the workflow progresses. Jira Automation Sample Library 
* Task Status and Responsibility: With multiple teams involved and common states like "In Progress" or "Pending More Info," it's helpful to ensure clarity on the actual status of each ticket and identify the responsible team. One effective way is to establish a linear workflow where each team's task is represented as a subtask of the main task ticket. By updating the status of subtasks, it becomes evident which team is currently accountable for the task's progress. Use appropriate statuses like "Pending More Info" to indicate when a team is awaiting input from another team. For example, linear workflow is when Team B puts the status "Pending More Info” you know they are waiting for Team A to get them an update and not from Team C or D.

Additionally, you can utilize JIRA's reporting and dashboard features to provide a holistic view for the business owner. Generate reports that display overall SLAs and metrics across teams, such as average resolution time or bottlenecks in the workflow. Customize the dashboards to showcase relevant information, ensuring that the business owner can easily track the status of tickets and identify any potential issues.

Once again, this my approach and someone else's approach can be completely different. Hope this helps and points you in a good direction!