New member introductions to the Agile Community Group

[Cinthia Catalani]

Hello Everybody!

I work remotely from Brazil, making waves in the US. I am a fast learner and an even faster teacher. I love pets, superheroes, and time travel stuff. I am a QA and Data Analyst, wearing each hat for 6 years. I used to be a heavy user of Jira and Confluence. Since January, I have been a Jira Admin in an Analytics instance, sometimes with opportunities to play the Agile Master.

I have answered to the questions 1 and 6. :)

Cheers,

Cinthia

[Kalee Williams]

Welcome to the group, @Cinthia Catalani

[Dave Rosenlund _Trundl_]

Welcome, @Cinthia Catalani  👋👋👋

[Murat Seven]

Hello everybody!

 

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

My name is Murat and I am an Atlassian Consultant at a Platinum Solutions Partner in Turkey. I really value this community. I look forward to interesting discussions.

Best

[Kalee Williams]

Welcome to the group, @Murat Seven

We're excited to learn from you! 

[Charlie Misonne]

Hello! My name is Charlie, I work as a consultant specilized in Atlassian tooling.

I have seen many projects and customers in my carreer so far. Some trying to adopt agile, some pretending they are agile. And even some doing a great job at agile.

I had my first real-life experience with SAFe on a recent project I now left. It was a great experience!

[Dave Rosenlund _Trundl_]

👋

[Robert Wen_Cprime_]

Welcome, @Charlie Misonne !

[Kalee Williams]

👋 Hi @Charlie Misonne! Welcome to the group, we're happy to have you! 

[Varunish Garg]

Hello Everyone, 

I am Varunish Garg here from Bangalore, India. I am a Technical and Product Documentation expert. 

Currently gaining my knowledge on Confluence. 

[Varunish Garg]

Glad to be a part of this wonderful group. 

[Kalee Williams]

We're glad to have you here!

[BHUSHAN PATIL]

I am Bhushan Patil, and thrilled to join this vibrant community group of Jira enthusiasts! I come with 2 years of experience in using Jira, Confluence and Crowd. I am looking forward to contributing to this community by sharing my knowledge, while learning from all the amazing members here.

[Mayur Jadhav]

Hi @BHUSHAN PATIL ,

Welcome to the Atlassian Community!!!

[Rahul Pandita]

Hello Atlassian Community!

I'm Rahul Pandita, and I'm thrilled to join this vibrant space of collaboration and innovation.

With a passion for efficient project management and a knack for problem-solving, I've spent the past few years diving into the world of Agile and Atlassian tools. From Jira to Confluence, I've found joy in streamlining workflows and optimizing team productivity.

Let's connect, share insights, and explore the endless possibilities of Atlassian together. Whether it's solving challenges or discovering new tips and tricks, I'm here to learn and contribute to our collective success.

Looking forward to being a part of this dynamic community and collaborating with fellow Atlassian enthusiasts! Feel free to reach out, and let's make our projects as seamless as our introductions.

Cheers to effective collaboration!

As regards with the icebreaker questions:

1. What type of team or company do you work for? 

           I work for Accenture as a Product Owner and my team work on create Digital repository of Knowledge Management data we have across industries.

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

           My favorite hobby is to do sketching whenever I get some time free and also writing blogs of my travel journeys which you can find at: https://wanderlusttravellerrp.in/

[CHIRAG VERMA]

Hi Everyone!! Tbh I am very happy to be part of this community.

My name is Chirag Verma and currently I am in my penultimate year in my university majoring in computer science. My interests are in the field of AI and ML and finance. I want to create a service integrating the two fields to build a product to be used by anyone around the world so that they can use the various services provided by AI & ML in their finances. 
About my hobbies well I like swimming, it's just when you are underwater you hear nothing yet you feel like you are listening to everything, that feeling excites me!!
I am hoping to learn some new experiences and knowledge from this community and am really proud to be a member of it.  

[Ankush Bora]

Hello All,

My name is Ankush. I am new to the Atlassian Community and to this group as well.
I have been a Scrum Master for 5+ years now and am still here. :)
I am part of a Data Analytics team and I love what we do for the company.

Icebreaker-5 : My favorite JIRA configuration is setting up individual dashboards for my team members customized to their respective needs.

Icebreaker-6 : Badminton enthusiast. Love to smash the birdie.

I have been hearing about JIRA having a "bad" rep in the Agile world. I believe that should change!

[Dave Rosenlund _Trundl_]

Welcome, @Ankush Bora  👋

[Kalee Williams]

Welcome to the Atlassian Community, @Ankush Bora

I loved your icebreaker questions. Your team must love you for the custom configurations. 

[Ankush Bora]

@Kalee Williams: I wish they do! :)

[Angi Bowman]

Hi! I'm Angi, the product manager for a conversion optimization SaaS company. My background started in marketing and communications before moving to conversion optimization and project management. This latest move has pulled on a technical side I knew existed but always pushed away. Heck, I took Fortran in college! I'm working towards my Lean Six Sigma and PPM certifications at the moment.

• I work for Lucky Orange. I was employee #3, and I've been here for almost 8 years. We're a small but mighty team. Our SaaS provides CRO tools to websites (heatmaps, recordings, surveys, etc.). 
• Let's all agree that siloed teams needs to end. I bring on that communication background to make sure all departments are included. 
• I hope to learn from this group! I moved our engineering team from Notion to Jira this fall, and I'll take any and all tips I can get. I use Jira so differently than engineers do, and it's been a great experience for all of us. 
• For a hobby, I like wildlife photography. We don't have much wildlife here in the 'burbs of Kansas City, so it means I get to plan trips around photo opportunities like whale watching in California or moose in Colorado. 

[Kalee Williams]

Welcome to the group, Angi! It also sounds like we can learn a lot from you. 😊

What a cool hobby! What's the most unique animal you've photographed before?

[Raymond Muyuka]

1. What type of team or company do you work for?

I work in a startup tech company that provides ERP solutions.

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

The 5 day work week, i would want to see it reduced to 4 days.

3. What do you hope to get out of this group?

Insights on how to be better as an agile practitioner.

4. What do you hope to bring to this group?

A sense of humor and new perspective.

5. What is your favorite Jira configuration tip and why? 

Always make sure your work flows are done correctly it will save you alot of sleepless nights.

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

Fifa.

[Sean Chua _Adaptavist_]

Hello, I'm relatively new with Atlassian (around 1 year). Had never really known or used Agile but looking forward to understanding more about the practice. 

[Kalee Williams]

Welcome, @Sean Chua _Adaptavist_

The Atlassian Community is a perfect destination for learning about all things agile. The Atlassian University has some great learning paths, you can check them out here.

[Andrew_Heawood]

Hello everyone,

I have worked in digital (mostly agency) for most of my career and now find myself in industrial automation at an early stage of digital transformation.  Fantastic and frustrating in equal measure!  I'm the tester, the project manager, the product owner, the scrum master, the UX researcher and the product manager.

Is Agile dead or alive?

:)

[Ajay _view26_]

@Andrew_Heawood  Juggling all those roles, you're not just transforming digital, you're a digital transformer! 🤖

[Dave Rosenlund _Trundl_]

Hej, @Andrew_Heawood. Welcome to this group, and to the community. 👋

As far as I can tell, Agile principles are very much alive in the Atlassian customer base, to varying degrees.

-dave

[HIMANSHU KUMAR]

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

I am a Jira Admin at Clover Infotech in Mumbai, India.

[Jeff Tillett]

Howdy all! Happy to be here!

1. What type of team or company do you work for? - I lead the Build and Release organization for Cisco Appdynamics and Full Stack Observability.
2. What do you hope to get out of this group? To be challenged to continue to grow and share my learnings.
3. What do you hope to bring to this group? An experienced approach to translating the Agile manifesto into Atlassian terms and techniques.
4. Do you have a hobby or something you enjoy when not working? Traveling, hiking, outdoor cooking, camping, and scenic drives

[Hrishikesh Tavar]

Greetings, I'm Hrishikesh, thrilled to be part of this group. Presently, I serve as a project manager at an IT firm, adept at handling projects of varying scales. Our preferred tool for project management is Jira.

Now, let's break the ice:

6. I thoroughly enjoy trekking and embarking on explorations.

[Dave Rosenlund _Trundl_]

Welcome to the community, @Hrishikesh Tavar  👋  I also enjoy trekking and my favorite vacation included a lot of hiking in the Swiss & French Alps!

[John C]

Hi there,

I'm John - an Agile Coach, Scrum Master and Jira devotee :) from Canberra, Australia.  I have been lucky to work with Jira - mostly in Government roles - for the past 8+ years.  I'm just beginning my Atlassian certification journey to solidify much of my 'learning by doing', and am keen to connect with others who are at a similar stage in the process.  I've mostly worked with Scrum and Kanban teams, and on some projects following SAFe.  I've run countless informal learning sessions with my teams.

What do I hope to bring to this group?

I love trying to solve interesting Jira challenges, and am a sucker for some clever JQL or a good plugin. I'm also looking forward to bringing some of my Agile experience to the mix, too.

What is your favorite Jira configuration tip and why? 

More of a plugin recommendation - JXL by Fine Software!  Get it and do not look back!  Trust me, it's the tool you need for SO many different situations...

Excited to be part of the community! 

[Dave Rosenlund _Trundl_]

Welcome to the community, @John Connolly  👋 

And good luck with your certification journey. If you haven't already found them, there are a number of articles here on the community about others experience in this area.

-dave

[Nick Nader]

Hi everyone!

I am a Senior Solution Engineer with Isos Technology for the past 5 years. I have been in the Agile space my whole career, and was part of the Jira Align EAP and implementation training back in 2019 when they first acquired AgileCraft.

I have an SPC SAFe 5.0 cert, and demo the JA product to prospective customers every week.

I hope to learn as much as I can from this group of amazingly talented individuals, and take my understanding of Agile methodology to the next level.

My hobby list is long but some top ones are: reading, video games, mountain biking, snowboarding, and gardening/horticulture. 

[Kalee Williams]

Welcome to thee group, @Nick Nader ! 

We're excited to have you here and thanks for sharing your hobbies. 

[Marshall Walker Lee]

Hello, everyone. It's a pleasure to meet all the new folks 😃

My name is Marshall and I am the head of customer education at Atlassian. If you have any questions about training and certification, please don't hesitate to reach out to me. 

Ice breakers: 

What is an antiquated way of working and how would you want to see it change? Micromanagement and perfectionism. We go further faster when we empower others to make decisions, execute, & learn. Getting it 80% right 5x as fast is much better than getting it perfect by managing every detail. 

Do you have a hobby or something you enjoy when not working? Playing music, long-distance running, vipassana meditation, and raising my kids. 

[Thiago Pinheiro]

Hi! I'm a product manager at Stefanini (IT Services company) and the antiquated way of working I wanted to see changing is about the way we validate ideas, we are getting better but still taking too long to get results from a "MVP".

My new favorite thing on Jira is the Product Discovery, specially seeing how this gets integrated with Atlas! 

[Ankush Bora]

Although I have been in the community for some time now (possibly 3-4 months), I wanted to say 'hello world' to all members here and in the community.

It has been a wonderful experience for me so far. Look forward to learn from the immense knowledge that folks here have. :)

As for answers to the questions from @Kalee Williams  above:

1. What type of team or company do you work for?

--> I work for a digital marketing team working on Go To Market capabilities. :)

4. What do you hope to bring to this group?

--> I think I can add my '2 cents' around stuff under the Agile umbrella.

P.S. - Consider this as a re-introduction

[Kalee Williams]

We're happy to have you, @Ankush Bora

[Charlene Freeman]

Hi My name is Charlene Freeman and I am the Agile Coach for all of North America at my company. I am also a Sr Scrum Master over multiple teams and manage several side projects. I sit on our global JIRA and Confluence Change Committee. 

Thank you for having me and I look forward to learning more in this community!

[Kalee Williams]

Welcome to the community, @Charlene Freeman

[Yves Nicodem]

1. Working in one of the largest Automotive Supplier Company as "Release Train Engineer" - see SAFE
2. Functional divided teams, take the courage and build up cross functional ones along customer values/requirements
3. See how other members work currently 
4. Vision and experience regarding Agile teams to fit into classical management practices/requests
5. Strongly use the linkage "depends on" to track dependencies
6. Swimming, Running.

[Kalee Williams]

Howdy, we're excited to have you in the group @Yves Nicodem

[Dave Rosenlund _Trundl_]

Yes, welcome @Yves Nicodem  👋

[Alex G]

Hi!
My name is Alexandra, I work as a project manager in a software development agency.
I manage my team's workload, project deliveries, dedicated resources, time management, well... everything with Jira Software!
I'm in this group to learn how to get the most out of Atlassian products 😃

[Dave Rosenlund _Trundl_]

Welcome to the group, @Alex G  👋

[Stephen_Lugton]

Hi All,

I'm an Agile Delivery Manager working for a pensions firm.  In my role I work across our entire Engineering department but focus mainly on 2 areas; Commercial Products as part of a cross functional team with our Marketing and Digital Transformation teams, and Data Platform where we have been implementing a Data Lake and integrating reporting and analysis across the company.  I'm also Delivery Manager for other smaller cross functional teams such as Finance Updates where I am leading another team to update our current finance data sources to be followed by a migration to a new Finance system, and an Operations Updates team where I am leading the combined teams to decommission existing applications and services as we transition to a new customer facing platform provider.

On top of all of this I am the company Agile Coach, and Engineering Jira admin.

As to antiquated ways of working, I've seen a number of people in this group mention excel, and we are currently in the process of removing the reliance on Excel that some of the teams (especially Finance) seem to have by replacing data sources and bringing in the new Finance system.  Even in engineering there are still people using excel and I've spent the past week moving one of these into JPD instead.  Additionally the use of emails to send a spreadsheet back and forwards is another antiquated way of working that we're stamping out on; information should be where the work is rather than lost in an inbox somewhere!  Oh, and meetings where the entire department is invited to listen to 2 people speak to each other on a video call, which they don't need to be involved in, and which is recorded for anyone who wasn't there because no-one set an agenda or took notes.

I think from the point of view of Jira configuration I've got a few tips:

Firstly, for those who can add in additional hierarchy levels, for instance Theme and Initiative so you can then treat an epic as a single deliverable rather than being a top level never ending container.

Secondly, don't be afraid to create new issue types for specific purposes, for example with our Data Platform team we often have multiple areas that the team are working on simultaneously so we have multiple Sprint Goals and to bring out visibility of these Goals I have created an issue type called 'Sprint Goal' which literally contains a Description (which contains any acceptance criteria), a refence field for what epic the goal is against, a RAG comment field, and a link to the Sprint.  There is a simple 3 status workflow 'Goal Set', 'Not Met', and 'Met', and then at the Sprint Review we just set the status to Met or Not Met and add a RAG comment if it's not Met.  This all links up to a dashboard so the stakeholders can see at a glance how the work is progressing and I have a handy reference for my weekly Atlas projects / goals update.

[Dave Rosenlund _Trundl_]

Welcome. @Stephen_Lugton. Those are some great tips! Thanks.