How many application administrators should an application have?
At one company, there were 132! There were no procedures to determine who was eligible for application-level admin access. It didn't matter if you were a technical development team manager or a non-technical project manager. It didn't matter if you had years of experience supporting an application or had no experience at all. Anyone who asked for admin privileges got them. Those users made any changes they wanted. Changes weren't planned, logged, or communicated. Changes often had negative impacts on other projects or the application as a whole. Schemes were duplicated multiple times. Custom fields were misspelled. Apps were installed and never used or uninstalled. The stability and usability of the application degraded every day. A complex query or a re-index would bring the entire application down!
Instead, determine the number of administrators needed (minimum and maximum) to properly support the application. This range should be determined by user count, project count, frequency of user requests, and aggressiveness of the routine maintenance schedule. Having too few administrators leaves your application unsupported especially during holiday breaks, emergency events, or when other company priorities arise. Having too many administrators results in conflicting changes or modifications inconsistent with the overall application strategy.
Admin Strategy Considerations
To decide who is responsible for the application, answer the following:
What is the minimum and maximum number of admins needed to properly support the application?
Who will make initial and ongoing configuration changes?
Who will maintain the application?
Who will vet and approve third-party apps, integrations, and connections?
Who will train new users, power users, and admins?
For Server and Data Center:
Who will perform regular upgrades?
Who will ensure application, server, database, and network stability?
Bonus Tip
Avoid the "one team manages ALL company apps" strategy. If the team has many apps to maintain, will Jira get the attention it deserves? Do the admins for "all the other apps" understand the specifics of Jira administration? Instead, form a dedicated team of admins who actually LIKE and care about the application!
Rachel Wright
Author, Jira Strategy Admin Workbook
Industry Templates, LLC
Traveling the USA in an RV
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