New member introductions to the Agile Community Group

[Kalee Williams]

👋  👋  Howdy, and welcome!  

If you’re new, we’re excited to have you. This group is a place where we hope you can engage, learn and share your perspective. All opinions are welcome. 

The way the members of this group engage with each other is entirely based on the type of members that join. Thank you for bringing an open mind, thoughtful questions, and any wisdom you have to share with others. 

Tell us a little about yourself! Our members will benefit from knowing the type of people that join this group. 

• Perhaps knowing your background will spark a question. 
• Perhaps the teams or type of company you work with will generate solidarity. 
• Perhaps you have the most unique experience and others want to learn more. 
• Perhaps you will meet a new friend for coffee chats to discuss work, ideas, and careers. 

Whatever the case, consider responding to at least two of the icebreaker questions in the comments: 

1. What type of team or company do you work for?
2. What is an antiquated way of working and how would you want to see it change?
3. What do you hope to get out of this group?
4. What do you hope to bring to this group?
5. What is your favorite Jira configuration tip and why? 
6. Do you have a hobby or something you enjoy when not working? 

💙  We appreciate you sharing your time and expertise with the community. 💙 

[Jennifer Abbott]

I am currently a Business Architect and my history is from the business analysis side of things.  From working in a operations role to support our Vision Insurance customers to process analysis, systems analysis, small projects, large projects and enterprise wide projects, I have seen many different approaches to the SDLC.  I have been a part of the PMO structure but currently sit outside the PMO.  I support both BA's and PM's with leveraging Jira for a hybrid Agile approach.  We track and sprint plan BA work in one board and transition the work to the Development board so it can be decomposed.  We use a variety of fields to help keep things traceable, including Fix Version field values, Components, and Labels.  Perhaps we are not using the fields in traditional ways but we make it work for the need we have.

🧊 Ice Breaker 1: I work for VSP Vision Care, an eyecare and eyewear insurance company.  

🥶 Ice Breaker 2:  One antiquated way of working is managing everything in EXCEL.  Great for starting out but not good long term.

[Dave Rosenlund _Trundl_]

Welcome, @Jennifer Abbott 👋🏻

[Kalee Williams]

Welcome, @Jennifer Abbott

I agree with ice breaker question #2. Excel is my worst enemy at times. 

[Graham Twine]

I manage over 200 projects in Jira and a couple of those are mine when I get the time. Some teams are mature and do things really well.
Others seem to love falling back to Excel as the single point of truth :( even with jira in place.

Is this members of the PMO unwilling to adopt to new ways of working?

*shrug shoulders*

I want to be agile and transparent not water frozen :D I know i am going to pickup some gems here.

Graham

[HIMANSHU KUMAR]

Hello Everyone!!

[Roy Gohringer]

Hello and welcome!

[Zaid Smadi]

Hi and welcome!

[Ncumisa Booi]

Hi Family

[MishManners]

This thread has been going for a while.

I currently work in a tech team, we have a very "do what works best" attitude (use the tools for the job, not just because it's there/cheap), would love to see how others tackle problems. Nice to meet everyone.

[Robert Wen_Cprime_]

Hello everybody!  I'm glad to be a part of this group!

My name is Robert Wen.  Let's see about answering some of these questions:

1. I work for ReleaseTEAM, a consulting company for working with DevOps tools.  I have expertise in Atlassian, GitLab, GitHub, Cloudbees, and Hashicorp tools myself, but I work with others who have expertise in other tools.

4. I hope to help others with questions and problems.

6. I love to cook and play a mean game of poker.

[Kalee Williams]

Welcome to the group, @Robert Wen_Cprime_

What's your favorite dish to cook?

Do you ever apply agile practices to your recipes or time in the kitchen?

[Robert Wen_Cprime_]

My favorite thing to cook is good ole' fashioned barbecue.  I love to smoke pork, ribs, and brisket.

Cooking barbecue is agile because you're doing a lot of "inspect and adapt" in terms of making sure you're at the right temperature so you do make adjustments to the fire.

[Taranjeet Singh]

Welcome to all the new group members!

To answer couple of the icebreaker questions from the above list:

- I work for a startup consulting organization named "BizTech2go Inc." that is based in Irvine, California. I have also worked for Atlassian Partner organizations like Addteq, and Cprime, in the past.

- My favorite Jira configuration tip is to not have too many Jira admins in a Jira instance, because as we all know "Too Many Cooks Spoil the Broth!"

Best regards,

Taranjeet Singh

[Kalee Williams]

Nice to meet you, @Taranjeet Singh

Too many cooks is a recipe for disaster. 😉

[G subramanyam]

Good morning @Kalee Williams 

Super excited to see a dedicated Atlassian group on "Agile" and able to connect with multiple agilists.

I work as a consultant Analyst/ Lead Scrum master for a multinational life science company driving multiple brands that follows Agile-Scrum framework. So, my entire work revolves with Jira Cloud and Confluence with few market place add-ons to support the work.

If you wish to know more or who I am, here's my personal website

I like to participate and engage in discussing best practices, know-how's etc.

[Kalee Williams]

@G subramanyam Welcome, and thank you for the intro!

This group is going to be a fun time for all. 

[Darryl Lee]

Hey y'all,

This is Darryl, I am new here and super happy to join this group.

I'm working with Atlassian as a Support Engineer and looking forward to helping as much as I can!

[Walter Buggenhout]

I am working for Belgian IT company ACA Group, an Atlassian Solution partner and also house of expertise for many IT related services. After working as business analyst in an agile software team for 4 years, I joined our Atlassian business unit, where I have taken up many different roles over the years.

I think I may come to like this group very much. Simply because even when implementing Atlassian tools, the agile mindset of both our customers and ourselves is way more important than the tools that support this.

I really hope to read some interesting views and learn from the many peers in this awesome Community. And I'll be happy to throw a pebble or two in the pond of agile discussions as well, every now and then.

[Josh Costella]

Hi all!

1. What type of team or company do you work for?
   • I work for a company called Nextiva. I lead an amazing team of full-time/dedicated Atlassian Solutions Specialists. Our team provides enterprise support and solutions for the entire Atlassian stack being used at our company.
2. What is an antiquated way of working and how would you want to see it change?
   • Same day meetings. We need to assume that people already have items they are working on and their time is already planned. Whether it is showing in their calendar or not. Context switching kills productivity! Respect each other's time and plan your meeting for another day. 

[Robert Wen_Cprime_]

Hello @Josh Costella , welcome from up the "101" (I live around Cave Creek and Deer Valley in Phoenix)

[Pramodh M]

Hi Everyone,

I'm here to understand the below topics!! and planning to write an article as well

Technical Aspects of Jira, where how each custom field will affect the reports, and what are the steps we need to make sure the reports are right in an Agile team.

I'm an Atlassian Certified Expert working for Platinum Partner in India.

Thanks,
Pramodh

[Brant Schroeder]

Hello,

  I am excited for the Agile group and the discussions and articles that will be posted here.  I am a director of modernization and use Atlassian products on daily basis.  My units also utilize agile methodology to move work / projects forward. 

[Sam Tsubota]

Hi everyone! I just joined this group. I'm a solution architect with Atlassian. Excited to meet everyone.

[Jennelle Stearns]

Hi Everyone.  I am a solutions architect with Atlassian and just joined this group.  I love going to escape rooms during my free time!  So excited to meet everyone.

[Srinatha T]

Hello Everyone.

This is Srinath and I am part Atlassian support team  and I joined in December 2021. I love contributing to community and so i am here.   

I am happy to join this group and exited to meet you all. 

[Taranjeet Singh]

Welcome @Srinatha T !

[Myles Hobdy]

Hi Everyone.

Myles here. Glad to see a group just for Agile!

I work with our Channel Partners at Atlassian and when I am not working I am busy developing video games.

[Taranjeet Singh]

Welcome @Myles Hobdy !

[Pete Mitchell]

Hi Friends! 

I'm a Senior Support Engineer for Trello, and joined the Atlassian team in December.

As for antiquated ways to work, I have a personal vendetta against fax machines and the idea that they exist. I'm consistently frustrated to learn that still in 2022 some government and educational organizations somehow consider a fax to be more secure and "official" than digital communication methods.

[Marjorie]

1. What type of team or company do you work for?
   1. RPA development team
2. What is an antiquated way of working and how would you want to see it change?
   1. Most of the old ways are gone because of Covid and working remote.  So, can't really think of much.  Except paper records.  Uggh.  Make those go away!
3. What do you hope to get out of this group?
   1. Share agile stories and obtain help and offer help.
4. What do you hope to bring to this group?
   1. New ways of working Agile.
5. What is your favorite Jira configuration tip and why? 
   1. Use confluence WITH Jira.  They are amazing partners (in crime??  LOL)
6. Do you have a hobby or something you enjoy when not working? 
   1. Reading

[Kalee Williams]

Can't wait to learn new agile ways of working! 

[Michael Yang - Shinetech Software]

Hello Everyone,

This is Michael and I am support engineer for atlassian plugins by Shinetech Software. We are Marketplace Partner and plan to provide more services based on Atlassian Products as Partner. We are also a software outsourcing company that has been using Agile in our all projects all the time.

I love video games, music, riding a bike during my free time.

We hope to make useful plugins to make work easily and Agile. Looking forward to contributing to the community.

[Karthick S]

Hello everyone,

I am Karthick and I am part Atlassian Bitbucket Cloud support team. I joined Atlassian in August 2021. I love contributing to the community and am happy to be part of it here.

Thank you

[meghna_singh]

Hey Everyone!

Excited to be a part of the group!

My name is Meghna, I work at KPMG as an Atlassian Consultant.

Looking forward to some interesting discussions, expertise in the agile world. 

<3

[Dave Rosenlund _Trundl_]

Welcome to the group, Meghna!  :) 

[Kalee Williams]

Welcome, we're happy to have you with us!

[Suvradip Paul]

Hello Everyone,

My self Suvradip. I work as Consultant and and I love this community and I love this new group name and as an Agile Enthusiast happy to join this group and discuss on Agile and relevant agendas and learn as we move forward.

Thanks.

[Robert Wen_Cprime_]

Welcome!

[Darryl Lee]

Welcome @Suvradip Paul !!

[Sachin Dhamale]

Hello @Kalee Williams  and Everyone,

Myself Sachin, I am working with Platinum Partner Company In India. I am working on Atlassian Product Suite. I am very fascinate about agile methodologies. Every organization follow this practice and every one has some myth about this and everyone follow the agile in their way. I would like to understand the more about agile in details.  I am happy to part of this group  

[Kalee Williams]

Welcome, @Sachin Dhamale

We're happy you're here!

[Sachin Dhamale]

Thank you @Kalee Williams 

[Kai Becker]

Hi Everyone,

my name is Kai and I work as an Atlassian Consultant for a Platinum Solution Partner in Germany. I really appreciate this community and I love to work the agile way.

Looking forward to interesting discussions.

[Fabio Racobaldo _Herzum_]

Hello everyone!

I'm Fabio and I work for Atlassian Platinum Solution Partner (Herzum) from 11 years. I did a worderful exeperience using all the Atlassian tools. 

Right now, I'm an Atlassian Expert Certified and helps a lot of customers in Atlassian adoption and customization. Thanks to JIRA Software, I started to learn Agile practices and I became a Safe 5 Scrum Master certified.

I love this community!

[Kevin Tuei]

Hello everyone, my name is Kevin Tuei. I work in an IT Startup and in Academia specializing in Information Security.

What is an antiquated way of working and how would you want to see it change?

Adhoc meetings where agendas and requirements are shared during meetings and you have to spend time gathering the requirements whilst the meetings are ongoing. It is always important to foresee anything required to be discussed and have the owners avail them beforehand and meet less or not meet at all unless really necessary. 

What do you hope to get out of this group?

I am an Agile enthusiast therefore I am already learning a lot from previous posts since joining this dedicated group. I am hopeful that I will meet fellow enthusiasts as well as have sessions with speakers for some of the Agile focused Atlassian Community Events I will be organising.

What do you hope to bring to this group?

I hope that I will bring and benefit from opportunities to share Agile Best Practices

Do you have a hobby or something you enjoy when not working? 

I love listening and dancing to Afro-latin Music like Semba.

Once again thank you for the opportunity to be part of this awesome group.

[Kalee Williams]

Welcome, @Kevin Tuei

We can't wait to learn from you. 

Please share your community events with the group so we can attend. 

[Kevin Tuei]

Thank you so much @Kalee Williams and the team for the warm welcome. I will definitely share events as I organize them and will also be looking forward to hosting you soon on a topic. 

[Alex Koxaras _Relational_]

Hi all!

My name is Alex and I'm with Cententia, a solution partner for Atlassian products.

Our company usually holds daily meetings to see about work impediments and how to solve them. We hold a retrospective by the end of any project to see what we can further develop.

I would expect from this group to see how they apply working agile as a solution partner, tips to strengthen the team, and ways to increase the deliverable value to a customer.

My hobby was (prior of my daughter) to play and compose music for films and video games. Now I really enjoy playing with my daughter! :)

[Vicky Jotwani]

Hello Everyone, 

I am Vicky Jotwani from India, with 8years of experience into compliance. 

I'm glad to learn new project about Agile with new learnings.

My hobbies is driving, playing football & travelling.

[Darryl Lee]

Hello @Vicky Jotwani , welcome to the Community!

[Robert Wen_Cprime_]

Welcome!

[Taranjeet Singh]

Welcome to the Community and Agile group, @Vicky Jotwani !

[Vicky Jotwani]

Thank you @Taranjeet Singh @Robert Wen_Cprime_ @Darryl Lee would like to learn more about Agile.

Want to learn alot from all. Happy learning. I'm open to learn.

[Chris Boys]

@Vicky Jotwani Hi!  Nice to meet you; looking forward to sharing learnings!

[Ken McClean]

Hello! 

I work for a Jira Consulting firm.  I'd like to strengthen my Agile skills, to be a better consultant.

 - Ken