5 ways you can make the most of Jira Software and Bitbucket Cloud

As part of the Bitbucket product team I'm always interested in better understanding what kind of impact the use of our tools have on the way you work. In a recent study we conducted of software development teams using Jira Software, we found those that integrate with Bitbucket release 14% faster than those that don’t. For many industries where the pace of change is rapid and the market incredibly competitive, it’s this speed that can separate the great products in the eyes of users from the merely “good” ones.

So how do these teams release their products faster using Jira Software and Bitbucket Cloud, all the while maintaining visibility across the team and ensuring each release is of high quality? Here are five tricks they’ve got up their sleeves.

1: Let the tools keep your team up to date

We all understand the importance of keeping the rest of the team up to date on progress on work for a release but let’s face it: this can be quite the chore when all you want to do is focus on getting your work done. So how do teams that release so often keep everyone up to date without sacrificing release velocity? Simple. They take advantage of the integration between Jira Software and Bitbucket and let the products do the updating for them.

By creating a branch directly from the issue in Jira Software or adding the issue key to any commit, branch, or pull request in Bitbucket, a link is created between your code and the issue you’re working on. This link means your team is kept up to date in real time in Jira automatically as you work and, in conjunction with workflow triggers, actions like creating or approving a pull request automatically change the status of the Jira issue too.

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Smart commits are another great way you can update your team as you work, allowing you to comment on, log time against, and even transition an issue using your commit messages.

2: Create the perfect workflow for your team

How often teams release depends on how robust their development workflow is and how disciplined the team is in following it. Utilizing Jira Software’s ability to customize workflows it’s possible to map the ideal workflow for your team, ensuring best practice and minimizing any unexpected circumstances that can delay a release. And paired with required checks before a merge in Bitbucket, it’s easy to implement a process that ensures quality and makes sure code is reviewed, merged, and built appropriately before being deployed to your users.

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3: Make it easy to understand the context

For a developer on your team trying to get context on their work the process of switching between tools can be slow and laborious. The workflow triggers can help keep your team up to date, but what can be done to help an individual stay on top of what needs to be done?

For teams that integrate Jira Software with Bitbucket, it’s easier than ever for a developer to see or ask for contextual information from their team in Jira inside Bitbucket.

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The integration allows users to not only view a Jira issue inside Bitbucket’s interface but interact with it, too. Adding comments, viewing attachments, or making edits to the issue itself – all this and more is available without having to leave the product.

4: Build confidence in your releases

Confidence plays an integral part leading up to any release. Has all the work been completed? Has the code been properly reviewed and tested? Release readiness is important to ensure the quality of your product, so how do teams that utilize Jira Software and Bitbucket together maintain quality but still release at a faster velocity?

The benefit of the integration really comes to the fore for teams who link their code with an issue, as it’s easy to get real-time updates via the development panel. No more adding comments to an issue requesting an update or pinging the team in Stride, each issue shows everything you need at a glance to better understand how close your next release is to being ready.

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5: Get a bird’s eye view with the release hub

Best of all, all the issues related to a release can be seen in the release hub. The release hub offers an automated, bird’s eye view of how ready your next release is, rolling up all the information the team needs to decide when to deploy to customers.

JSM-ReleaseHub.png

How does the integration help you?

These are just five of many features the integration provides for folks who use Jira Software and Bitbucket Cloud, and I'm interested to know how integrating the two products helps you and your team get work done.

How do you use the integration? What do you like? What would you like to see next? Let me know in a comment below!

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