Remote working and Jira

[Liam Green]

Hi all

Just wondering what people's opinions are around remote working and being a Jira consultant.  Do people find that the client usually wants regular face to face contact, or that they're happy for the work to be done remotely?

How are people finding this during the current Covid situation, and do people think this will likely have a long term impact on remote working?

[Teodora V _Fun Inc_]

Hey @Liam Green 

Botron's office is located in Bulgaria, a small country in the EU, and 100% of our collaboration with partners and customers is remote.

We had a Professional Services team focused on Atlassian Migrations. The core of this job is often collaboration with customers and close work with their engineering teams. So far, each of our deals is with 100% success rate and zero complains for the remote part :)

A curious fact is that here in Bulgaria, most of the companies prefer face to face contact. One good reason why we operate Worldwide hehe.

[Liam Green]

@Teodora V _Fun Inc_ 

That's very interesting - I think the majority of companies usually prefer face to face, but its great that you've managed to go 100% remote.

Are your partners based in Bulgaria too?

[Teodora V _Fun Inc_]

@Liam Green, our partners are also remote.

We had one face to face collaboration here in Bulgaria, for a company who implemented a Service Desk solution, and I suppose this will stay the one and only one :)

I think with the major shift to remote, most of the companies will adapt to the new way of working. I will keep an eye on this thread; it looks quite curious. I'm always a defender of "more work done, less time spent in meetings and travels to one another's offices."

[Liam Green]

@Teodora V _Fun Inc_ 

I couldn't agree more!  Why waste time travelling or in meetings when you can be doing something productive!

[C_ Derek Fields]

@Liam Green We are a US-based Atlassian consulting group. We are typically 90% remote and 10% onsite. Our clients don't typically want to pay for the travel and living costs for us to be onsite, so we try to limit our time onsite to the project kickoff and requirements gathering. The rest of the work is remote. About 60% of our clients prefer that we work remotely for the entire engagement.

[Liam Green]

Hi @C_ Derek Fields 

That seems to be the consensus.  Do you find that allows you to take more international work or do you stick to US work?

How are you finding on site work currently with the Covid restrictions?

[C_ Derek Fields]

We only take US-based work, though I have some resources who are based outside of the US. We have not allowed any travel or on-site work during Covid.

We do have regular calls with the client using Webex, Zoom, Teams, GoToMeeting or whatever they prefer. Generally, our consultants are working with the client every day and, as the project manager, I tend to talk to the client about once a week. Our clients know that we are actively working on their projects since we a continuously showing them the new work.

We have a few clients who do not allow non-employees to access their systems remotely for security reasons. In those cases, we do screen-sharing, where we either take remote control of the user's desktop or we talk the client through the steps to configure their system. It is very cumbersome but it allows the client to get the work they need without violating their restrictions.

[m93]

Hi @Liam Green 

Atlassian is all in all Enterprise toolstack and as you can see from other responses Companies are working remotely with Clients. I would say that as a Consultant fining Client is hard. But maybe solution is to connect with Companies/Partners to lease your work as a remote worker :)

[Benjamin]

Hi @Liam Green 

It really depends on the client preferences. In my experience, usually remote work is preferred and client are general happy with this approach. Even more so, during this covid period. If anything, I think there will be more companies that would move towards remote during covid and post covid. 

Another driving factor of this is the current technology that's out there that enable all of us to easily connect and collaborate. Unless, you're a highly secure client/company, don't see much in person contact now or in the future.

However, personally, it's nice to meet your clients to face to face. Especially, at the beginning of the engagement and at the end. 

[Liam Green]

Hi @Benjamin 

Thanks for your thoughts, I think its definitely good to have some personal interaction during the engagement if possible

[Alan Stephenson]

Hi @Liam Green 

When COVID hit, we were told to work remote. I was already working remote three days/week for years, coming into the office whenever I had required meetings or I would travel locally to a different office to help someone where I knew it would be best to be in person.

A month after COVID hit, I was furloughed; during that time I searched for work because there was no guarantee my position would be available, or when the furlough would be over. I couldn't afford to wait it out.

I searched and had some offers, but most companies were not on board with remote work, even during COVID. Some didn't have plans how to manage the workers during this time. Being a JIRA / Confluence admin it is really easy to work remote, I was doing it for years before the pandemic. All depends on (a) your company, (b) your management and (c) your work ethic to actually be productive when you are remote. Leaders will see you're productive no matter where you are, and if you are easily available they won't know you remote.

Happy to say I am back working at the same company, but always looking in case something happens since nothing is safe these days.

[Liam Green]

Hi @Alan Stephenson 

Thanks for the insight, judging from your furlough comments it sounds as though you're in the UK too.  I think the furlough scheme was a great idea, but it must have caused a lot of uncertainty.  I'm glad to hear that you're back at the same company, but as you said nothing is safe.

[Alan Stephenson]

No, sunny California here in USA. California is still having issues opening up. 

[Konstantin Nazarov]

Hi, @Liam Green 

Having entered the J&C group, the first post I posted my idea exactly on the topic of remote work that interests you without face-to-face contact, but not about consulting. About group leadership, as Project manager. Group leadership includes consulting tasks.

My opinion is that this mode is primarily possible for managing international development teams in Scrum projects. Such teams initially work remotely and there is no way to manage their work face-to-face. They are initially dispersed throughout the world.

One of my “wishes” is that such development teams are looking for leaders for themselves, (as thes team are employers) in this Jira group, or in the Atlassian service created for this purpose. According to the Scrum Guidelines, a scrum development team needs a leader with the "servant leader" property. The ideal situation is when a team hires a leader. This can be a very large job market where Jira can earn and we will all be happy. Thought in expanded form I set out above, in the post:

    Hi J&C Group! Are there employers like the Development team or recruiters/ HH for them?

At the first stage, it would be correct to involve such teams in this group. When the "movement" begins, it will be time for Atlassian to build such a freelance platform and make his money on us. Thus, the first step on the way to achieving the goal is to somehow draw the attention of the Community Leader to this idea, and so that they make an effort to spread it among the target audience, starting with those who already use Jira, but not as a project manager, but as member of the development team.

How do you like this my idea? Do you have any thoughts on how you can bring this goal closer?

Have a nice day!

// We crossed with you today in the same branch. (How effective are labels for reporting?) a server crash prevented me from posting my answer in your discourse thread

[Deepanshu Natani]

I have been working remotely since past 8 years and all of our clients are always satisfied.

A few clients have requested for on site meetings/ discussions or support but we have always been able to fulfill their needs remotely. None of our clients so far have found an issue with remote working and infact they have been happy about this.

This is so nice about Atlassian Ecosystem. Even during the Covid situation, our work has not been impacted and we have been able to cater to all the needs of our clients as usual.

However, I have seen organizations where clients have been adamant on f2f meetings but even that has changed after the Covid situation. I think this situation has made remote working more acceptable and this may become a new normal.

[Chris Buzon]

I don't really consider myself a consultant, but I do administer projects across my company now - I just sort of "took over" because I know what I'm doing, and appear to be much more experienced than other admins on my team.

I almost always prefer a face to face call so someone can share their screen (or I can), in order to show people what I mean, or how to fix something.  Often people get lost in the explanations, or they don't understand the UI differences between one project and the next, so I need to see exactly what they are seeing.  

[Alex Janes]

Jira has actually enabled remote work for us, where we would otherwise have to implement multiple pieces of software.

We completed the migration of our first business process into a Jira workflow 2 years ago, and when the pandemic hit, we were ready to have users login remotely to do their work.

[jawad haider]

Hello,

I am BS(CS) and an expert atlassian engineer having 5+ years experience working in banking,financial,IT and engineering sectors implementing atlassian softwares including JIRA,Trello,Confluence,JIRA Service Desk and bitbucket.Total I have 15 years experience in IT.I am also certified scrum master(CSM).I was working as a JIRA and confluence administrator with Dubai Islamic Bank UAE and have total 3 years experience working in UAE on same role.

Upwork Profile
https://www.upwork.com/freelancers/~01cdb37ab17253473e

My services include:
1) Installation and upgradation of Jira/Confluence/Jira Service Desk/bitbucket server apps on Linux/Windows.

2)Manage Jira service desk projects and customization of their customer portals including icon logo branding,workflow customizations, SLA,automation etc

3) Managing and customization of complex workflows in Jira including validations,conditions and post function

4)Managing issue types , screens ,permission,security levels schemes for custom projects

5)Managing users,groups ,project roles,global permission,spaces,global space permissions

6) Managing AD integration with Jira/Confluence

7)Managing installation,upgrade,training on 3rd party atlassain addon like JMWE,JWT,Scriprunner,Jira portfolio,Zephyr,Xray,Bobswift,Bigpicture,Rich filters,SLA Time and report,Profields,Email the issue and many more etc

8)Train team how to use Jira/Confluence effectively.

9)Managing and customization of scrum and kanbanboards.

10)Managing atlassian software and addon licensing

11)Managing and creating Jira reports and dashboards using EAZYBI reports addon.

12)Setting up confluence spaces , templates,filelist, space permissions

13)Migration from JIRA/JIRA SD/Confluence cloud instance to server ,from server to cloud and from server to server.

Thanks
Jawad Haider

skype: jawad.haider1

whatsapp : +971504801874

[Dirk Ronsmans]

Hey @Liam Green ,

Let me chime in here :)

For my personal situation it hasn't changed that much. I'm an implementation consultant and even pre-covid we used to do a lot of our work remotely.

Sure the initial workshop, steering committees, trainings were mostly done on site but once we have our requirements outlined we tend to do most of it remote.

Now some of those in person things have been changed to remote as well but I have to say I would not mind having to do those in person again. Doing discussions or providing training through a Teams call just isn't the same as in a classroom/meeting room.

In my own company there used to be a mix of remote/on site work depending on the client and internally it used to be 1day a week you were allowed to work from home.

i'm sure that post-covid (whenever that might be) the shift will be towards more home/remote work. People have gotten used to not having to commute as much and we've all shown that it's perfectly possible to do our work remotely.

I'm sure that the home office will only continue to grow.