Jack Graves: Real Ale enthusiast with a knack for Jira Software implementation

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@Jack [AppFox] first caught our eye with his incredible breakdown of what, in his opinion, can make or break a Jira software implementation. (Read his thoughts on this thread)! In this followup Showcase, Jack shares a bit more about his life and career, including but not limited to his definition of a “good” scrum master, his most used Marketplace apps, and how cryptocurrency factors into his free time. Enjoy! 

What is your current role, and what path have you taken to get there?

I'm currently a Senior Consultant at Automation Consultants and my role includes consulting clients in Agile (SDLC), DevOps and IT Transformation areas, developing software (including 5 Marketplace Apps) and managing consultants. Since I started, I have been an advocate of Atlassian products and act as an SME on the suite. I went up the ranks in the company from starting as a Graduate Consultant after finishing university and have consulted over 30 companies during my time at the company from small projects to large transformations.

 When was the first time you used an Atlassian product? What were you using it for?

I first encountered Atlassian products while working at BlackBerry (formerly RIM) as a Software Test Associate, during my undergraduate sandwich year. The company used Jira as a defect management solution and my role included test management, as well as creating, testing and searching for defects which were found during testing of mobile software (BlackBerry 10). As a tester, I had to engage with developers using Jira and facilitate defect remediation across the global development team. 

In a few sentences, what is your definition of a “good” scrum master

A good scrum master, in my opinion, is somebody who enables and empowers teams to work with as much freedom and flexibility as possible whilst ensuring they stay on track to meet their targets for a particular sprint or release.

With a good scrum master in place, the difference between what a team aims to do and what they achieve should decrease over time as they gain an understanding after a few sprints of what the teams velocity is, and where this needs to be increased they can quickly determine what would achieve that end e.g. additional resourcing, setting clear expectations of what can be achieved in a sprint. Naturally, this is where a product like Jira is invaluable as when used well this information drops out simply.

What is your favorite (or most used) Marketplace app (aka plugin)

When working with Software projects, I use the Rich Filters for Jira Dashboards for improved reporting gadgets on Dashboards, and Planning Poker to help improve the estimation. I use Portfolio for Jira Apps the most as they help further the built-in reporting, estimation, and planning features of Jira without having to use a separate interface.

What do you like to do outside of work?

I’m a Real Ale enthusiast and enjoy going to various events held in the UK such as beer festivals, as a member of the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA). I am also a home automation enthusiast and like working on projects with Arduino and Raspberry Pi platforms to bridge programming with the real world. I also work on personal software development in my free time, including Node.js, Android development and more recently cryptocurrency trading.

[Omar Herrera]

t's good to know how atlassian tools help us to made betters in our roles and achieve new and challenging projects.

[Matthew Coughlan]

I'd like to see a JIRA workflow for brewing/quality control and development. Perhaps you could launch that as DevHops movement ;-) 

[zack]

Ha, @Matthew Coughlan DevHops is great! I have a buddy who brews professionally, I should see if I can get his brewing workflow on Jira.

[Jonny Adams]

@Matthew Coughlan "DevHops" made me laugh. I may start using Jira for homebrewing.

[Miles B.]

❤️DevHops haha. Batch management via Jira, secret recipes stored in Confluence, and your craft brew website hosted from a Bitbucket repo :)