CLOSED but UNRESOLVED CRITICAL Ticket

Question

Please read the recent comments on this ticket: https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRASERVER-65785

This is causing us so much hassle and waste and I know this is a trivial addition that is already implemented for subtasks on stories, the inconsistency unjustifiable. Sort, without event saving it, is fairly useless. If you had sort by title and save, at least then we could ensure they are in the proper TO BE WORKED order by title hierarchy. Stories are discrete, that doesn't mean they aren't sequenciable... and a  dev shouldn't have to click into every story to determine which are workable and unblocked (assuming we even set those... sometimes its a simple sequence, viewed better with a list than blockers).

Please consider reopening in or finding another solution to meet the basic need of sequencing stories (something that doesn't require continuous admin intervention, like creating a custom board).

W_38l5et · Answer

Another Ticket related: https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-76877

W_38l5et · Answer

Thanks, but another board to sequence tasks associated with an EPIC will not work efficiently, we actually do that now for the Active Sprint, but not all stories on an EPIC may be worked in the same sprint so it presents only a partial view of the entire epic, which means you could never use it to actually do task sequencing. In other words, yes, in GUI design there are workarounds, there are literally an infinite number of ways to skin a kat... but in the end, only a few ways are uniquely enough and optimal enough to be economical and optimal.

This is a fundamental problem with at least 2 of these optimal ways to use Jira. It stems from a few errors atlassian has made:

* Need Not Understood: In GUI design, one should focus on not allowing the user to corrupt the data, while providing the same full features of the underlying tech, which is generally SQL... add a field for work_order, let us set sort and save it and problem is solved though not eligantely.
* Inconsistent: IN GUI design, consistency is priority 1, if nothing more than for the user's benefit if not also pure corporate cost control. If you cannot tell me why Atlassian allows me to manually sort subtasks on an Story, but not Stories on an EPIC, then I think it's just inconsistency resulting from two people implementing the same thing differently, probably at different times (i.e. Inter-EPIC relations lets call it).
* Invalid Workaround Provided: Atlassian accepted a change request on that ticket with over 600 upvotes, then implemented something else, probably because they were looking at only one workflow Jira is capable of. The something else is fundamentally useless.
* Managing Different Views of the same business data Inconsistently: Boards are filterable, boards are not always interpreted or sorted the same, and as you say boards depend on how they are configured (which is usually wrong or incomplete in my experience, usually due to fundamental errors in Jira configuration, like having status OPEN, open, 1-open, Open, Waiting, etc and then not having the 10 people managing in the IT department understand they need a contiguous system, they can't just implement whatever the 100 users asks for and without PM expertise, it's hopeless for them)... i.e. The people with admin rights to Jira generally are not Project Management Experts and Agile is just a vague small piece of what it needed to work effectively... in the end, it is true, dev's just need a top down list of things to be worked in the right order... we can use Word for that in the end, the value of Jira is managing it hierarchically for 300 devs with 4 project managers, each assigned to say 20 epics thinking 5 versions ahead.
* It sounds like your only considering the needs of the developer, and not the needs of the various people that generate those implementation lists, Product/Project/Architecture/etc Managers. You sound like a developer looking at a particular board for a particular audience, getting ready to work the next ticket... assume I am an Epic owner that does not have access to the dev board for whatever reason, or I have my own board, whatever... you guys provide an EPIC ticket view and you provide a EPIC Grouped Board view, why should I be allowed to see order on one but not the other? Why in Epic Ticket view, all of a sudden sort-by-assignee (without save) becomes the proper sort order to show? If we solved every problem like this with a board (a sort problem) we would have hundreds of boards in the left hand nav and no one would be happy.
* "I think you need to look at what your workflow is doing": assume I know nothing about company workflus, I don't have credentials to change anything... My job is to plan epics... assume there are 10 others like me.

Please, read the comments, see the votes, escalate the ticket... this isn't one misconfigured board, I've been dealing with this deficiency in Jira for 10 years across 10s of company's... huge companies like TVA, Feeserve, Georgia Power... You'r programming errors are costing the planet trillions in efficiency losses. I think I will likely assemble all the materials related to this singular problem and send it to the board and CEO if this fails... if that fails, dead certain Jira will be my last recommendation going forward due to static development and bad bug and engineering support.

Sorry, but I can't describe how much pain this causes people, and Atlassian has continuously been terse and dismissive, without addressing the points, without addressing the original ask of the ticket, without explanation. We are all devs, you guys are just devs for devs, even then we sales and others using jira... please do better, the customer is always right, if he isn't he should be provided with a formal engineering justification for not fixing... not 'your doing it wrong, use another custom board.

Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Answer

I think you need to look at what your workflow is doing.

This is a very terse response, but it sounds like your data is a bit broken, probably because of a combination of broken process and broken Atlassian admin.

Your story sequencing should be set on a custom board, so I am thinking that we need ro look at that.