CUG Benefit: Jira Essentials Cert Prep - Instructor Led Class

[#1]

Hello Fellow CUG Leaders!

We had the opportunity to take part in one of the 15 seat Jira Essentials Certification Prep classes. I thought I would take a couple of minutes to write my thoughts and opinions of the course as well as the reactions of our users who attended this class.

So, what did we think?

This was an amazing class! A HUGE shout out to @Joanna Thurmann for being a wonderful instructor (as always). The material was delivered in a very methodical format where the concepts were introduced in a logical order. Joanna kept everyone engaged with a ton of audience participation and a lot of good conversations took place as we explored each topic. I received nothing but positive feedback from everyone that we had attending the class.

Would we like to see additional classes in the future?

I took a survey of our users that attended the class, and not only did everyone say that they intend to attempt the certification exam, but also, everyone would love to do another class like this in the future! Many users were curious about the other associate certifications as they are relevant to the Atlassian products we are currently using.

Is an instructor led class better than at-your-own-pace material?

I’ve mentioned this in the past and I say it again, ABSOLUTELY! One of the greatest advantages of taking an instructor-led class is benefitting from the questions that will be asked by other participants that you might not have thought to ask yourself.

Are you thinking about preparing for this exam yourself? Then, I invite you to benefit from our session (which I got permission to share), as I transcribed the questions that were asked during the class as well as the answers which might help as you prepare to study for this exam.

Finally, I want to say a BIG thank you to @Chris Shernaman for offering this opportunity and helping us co-ordinate this happening, I think we really benefitted from this!

If you are planning to attend Team ‘25 in Anaheim, if you happen to see me, please stop me to say hello, I’d love to chat!

Take Care!

Q&A Transcript:

• Could you please explain what pull and push processes are?
  Push items are assigned to individuals vs Pull where items are left unassigned and team members pick up items as they are ready to work on them

• Would it be accurate to say that a story is usually for a user, whereas a task is not for a user?
  Not necessarily. However, tasks are “usually“ for tech debt items but not always.

• In a scrum, can be epic part of the backlog?
  For the purposes of this course Epics are not a part of the Backlog, but are displayed in their own panel next to the backlog.

• Did you say people who are not Jira Admins can create team-managed projects?
  It is only available if the “Create Projects“ global permission is enabled.

• Can you create an Epic of an Epic?
  There are issue hierarchy outside of the Epic->Story->Sub-task level but that is beyond the scope of this class and configurable per instance.

• Doesn't the "need" in sample question #4 imply that has been obligated to completed on that specific time frame = company manage scrum?
  No, because the question had the word ‘control’ it typically refers to a team managed; where as a company managed is generally adjusted by a Jira admin

• Maybe slightly off topic, but what is the best practice way to organize your assigned issues?  I racked up a lot of issues over the years that just ended up getting ignored due to competing priorities.
  Create a filter where “Assignee = currentUser() and Resolution is empty” — This will show you issues assigned to you that are not yet completed. Save that filter. Then create a dashboard with gadgets that uses this filter to slice and dice this set of issues. E.g. by Project, By Priority, By Issue Type, By Component, etc.

• If we get all the questions correct today, are we likely to pass the exam? Or will there be some topics that are not included today on the test?
  There is  a summary at the end. If you get all questions correct, you’re EXTREMELY likely to pass :-)

• Is this the most basic of Jira certifications?
  Yes it is. The ACA-900 is a great starting point.

• Will Shortcuts be tested on the exam?
  Yes, there will be questions about some of the common shortcuts.

• How to get to Epic panel?
  I'm pretty sure it's displayed along the top with the quick filters

• Does Jira speak to MS TEAMS?
  Jira admins can set up integration with Teams or Slack

• Where are the clone and convert operations located?
  The operations are in the “…“ menu on the issue.

• When converting you can you convert from sub-task to issue?
  Yes.

• Can you convert to an Epic?
  No, you need to move an issue to an Epic.

• is this correct? Keyboard shortcuts  – i (to assign it yourself) or a (to assign it to someone else)
  Yes, this is correct.

• Can time tracking be logged past the estimate?
  Yes, and visually it will display what the original estimate was as well as how much time in total has been tracked.

• To clarify would the bar also be full if no time was ever estimated? Why is D wrong for question #16
  Time may have been estimated before the hours were logged. In fact, if no time remains for the estimate, this usually implies that there was an original estimate against which the logged time is being compared; the fact that no time remains suggests the work completed matches the estimated time. However, it’s possible that no time was ever estimated, as well. But it’s not definitely true.

[Ree Kent]

Thank you @Jimmy Seddon for this detailed post. So good to hear that the class was a success!

[Chris Shernaman]

Thank you @Jimmy Seddon, for sharing your and your users' experience with this course offering. Your insights and the Q&A transcript are incredibly valuable and enlightening!

For anyone interested in this, check out the available training to get started with team training, public classes, or community-led classes.