5 Customer mistakes made in 2019 and how to avoid them in 2020
Keeping up with New Year’s resolutions can be overwhelming, especially when some goals seem unachievable. However, Solution Partners are here to make your business goals easy.
Our trusted Atlassian Partners offer a wide range of accredited services, apps and integrations, training, and customized solutions to extend the power of Atlassian products. Their services together with Atlassian’s suite of products is a great way to kick off the year, and today, Coyote Creek and Exempio share their customer's most common mistakes in 2019 and to avoid them in 2020
Time is of the essence, and we ain't got a lot of that
One of the most common mistakes customers make is around estimation. Some teams estimate with Story Points, others with time. Some teams say that they cannot estimate their tasks. When management wants to know if a release will go out on time, it’s very difficult to look at the data and have a good comfort level with a release date. Coyote Creek works with their clients to institute a standardized way of estimating, or at least doing things in an industry-standard manner. It takes a little effort to do estimations, but it pays big dividends down the road. It allows you to ask critical questions around whether tasks can fit into the available time that you have. It’s also beneficial when you are asked to deliver things ahead of schedule, as you have data to support your timeline, ask for additional headcount to complete tasks or remove things from the release.
Tick-tock tick-tock
The Hammer Syndrome
When Exempio talks to customers making a change of tools, the first question asked is always “If you take a hammer to hit a nail and in the process, you hit your fingers, is it the hammer's fault?”
This analogy is intended to make the point that while implementing the Atlassian tools is easy because they are so configurable, you can also quickly abuse the tools and then complain that the tools are not working the way you expected them to work.
There is no substitute for planning how you implement the tools that will help run your business. A little planning goes a long way to getting the most out of your tool investment.
Plan, plan, plan!
Process, it keeps changing
A common mistake teams make is thinking that once instituting agile, they’re done with a process change. The idea of agile is that you're able to adapt to change and that you improve your releases over time. The same is true of the process itself. Coyote Creek believes you need to constantly review the process to determine if changes are needed. This is one of the reasons that agile has taken hold in the manner that it has, compared to the myriad of similar process methodologies that are out there.
Coyote creek highly recommends adhering to industry-standard agile practices, but this is rarely a one-size-fits-all methodology. The methodology is designed to adapt to software teams, hardware teams, and non-technical teams. It’s easy to forget that the origin of agile methodology is Toyota’s LEAN process that was developed to build cars and trucks. It’s simply a structure for continuously improving over time.
Keep it moving
Wild, Wild, West
This lesson comes from seeing customers implement Atlassian tools, give numerous people access to the tools, and have little to no governance around the usage of the tools.
As a partner, Exempio understands that time is precious for everyone and most teams have very little time for any “process stuff” but these teams will be the first to complain that the tool isn’t doing what they “expect”. This comes from people on teams that do not take the time to understand what the tool can do and they just “hack it” to get their job done.
Tool training is essential, no matter how long people have been using the tool.
Train, Train, Train
Atlassian Administrator – Your Yoda!
One flawed assumption that many customers make is that the Atlassian Tool administrator is just someone from IT and it's usually the same person that makes sure the system is up and running. There is so much MORE to being an Atlassian Tool Administrator.
The uptime of the machines running the Atlassian tools is the smallest component of what an Atlassian Administrator should be doing. In fact, for most Atlassian administrators, once the tools are installed on a properly configured system, they spend very little time worrying about the machine that's running the tools. In today’s push for applications being hosted in the cloud-like the Atlassian cloud, it helps make this point even clearer.
However, the one thing that you cannot ignore is the regular support that your teams need with regard to the tools they use every day to do their job. Often customers think that once these tools are installed and configured, they will just take care of themselves. They are correct that the tools run themselves, but where the Atlassian Administrator is crucial, is in the function of making sure that as a company’s process evolves and changes, that the tool that was configured to work with one process is still optimal once that process changes.
This is where your Atlassian Administrator has to be your Yoda!
According to Exempio, the Atlassian Administrator must be:
-
available to the teams to answer questions as they arise
-
stay in touch with the teams as they focus on delivering their goals and make sure the tool is working for the teams and not the other way around
-
be ready to provide new solutions to the teams as their needs change
-
train new members of the team to ensure that they understand how the team is using the Atlassian tools to achieve their goals
Your Atlassian Administrator – more than a tool administrator!
Use our Partner Directory to connect with Coyote Creek, Exempio or a Partner near you -->
Was this helpful?
Thanks!
Vannya Vallejo Vega
6 comments