(Re)Starting Atlassian University Series - First post

[#1]

December 15th 2021.

That was the day I got introduced to Atlassian products and, like John Snow, I knew nothing.

I joined the company a month prior, and, since I had a background as a system administrator, they thought it was a great idea to task me with implementing Jira Service Management to replace FreshDesk.

Luckily, we hired an Atlassian partner, but, since they had a limited amount of time, I needed to do a lot of work myself. I turned to both the Atlassian Community and the Atlassian University.

I just needed to find out how to overcome specific challenges and I signed up with my work e-mail address for both and went to work. I asked questions, followed the free training and, over time, it started to make sense.

The community proved to be great. I learned so much and over time, started answering questions myself. Answer questions means that you need to make sure that your answer is correct and this lead me to explore parts of the products that I didn’t use on a daily basis. 

To further my knowledge I completed some courses from the Atlassian University.

As time moved on, I got more involved with the community and wanted to give something back. I applied for the community leader program and was honored to be accepted. That is when I was reminded that having your work e-mail address associated with your personal activities isn’t the smartest thing to do. I had my community account migrated to one with my personal e-mail address

However, the University just got a revamp and this seems like a great time to start a new journey. Inspired by a recent article about @Deepanshu Natani, who holds every Atlassian certification, I would like to give this a try myself. 

This is the first article in, what will hopefully, be a long series. I hope you join me in the journey, perhaps even try to get some certifications yourself. Please let me know if you have any questions or remarks.

Since I do like to interact with the community, I would like to ask you to determine on where to start. I give you until Thursday 24-11-2022 before I follow your lead and start with one of the below paths.

1. Jira Service Management Fundamentals
2. Confluence Fundamentals
3. Trello Fundamentals
4. Jira Fundamentals

Thanks for reading and let’s keep on learning!

[Kate Pawlak _Appsvio_]

Hi Paul, 

It's the third place where we're crossing today! ACE Sofia, LinkedIn, and now this article :)

From my experience, being involved in the community, answering questions, or reading others' stories are the best ways to learn the Atlassian stack as well as get knowledge of how other companies from different industries work. 

I would like to highly recommend you start from Jira Fundamentals where are a lot of useful information which are necessary to understand topics from JSM Fundamentals. JSM is very close to Confluence, so I guess it should be next. In the case of Trello, I still don't see any connections with the rest of Atlassian products. Maybe I don't use Trello a lot, so I don't "feel" this product. On the other hand, I see that Jira Work Management becomes like "Trello on steroids". Anyway, I will leave this at the end. Or you should start with it! I guess it's the easiest path 🤔

I'm crossing my fingers for your development path! You should definitely prepare for ACP certifications - it's a huuuge motivation to learn because they're really demanding.

Kate

P.S. The possibility to migrate your account to another email is so powerful - I can say it from my experience 😂

[Andy Gladstone]

The real question is if you started out knowing nothing, do you feel you got here?

[Dave Liao]

@Paul Wiggers - good luck Paul!

Which path will help you the most with your current job, or a job you might want to have?

Which path is the most exciting for you?

I've got the same dilemma on my end... 😅

[Lewis Tanguhwar]

@Paul Wiggers 

I will suggest you start with Jira Fundamentals.

No strings attached but I feel that is the root and beginning of all  .... lol

I am actually looking for some one who has written the ABB-220 Exams recently.


That is the first Exam I will be sitting for in less than 48 hours from now

[Paul Wiggers]

@Kate Pawlak _Appsvio_ It is a small world it seems. 

Trello is something that is still really confusing for me. Some people swear by it (hello @Brittany Joiner !), but for me, I still have to figure out why I should use Trello instead of Jira.

@Dave Liao What would help me the most? I guess that doesn't really matter at this point. I am the sole Atlassian administrator at the company and I need to know a bit about everything. My end goal? Good question. I am currently happy where I am but it would be nice to have a future where I can remotely support different customers with their Atlassian issues. Just sitting in my mountain cabin, cup of coffee, sounds of nature, and typing away while admiring the view....one can always dream right? ;) 

@Andy Gladstone Well, I am getting there. It helps a lot when you get a basic grasp of the different systems and how they interact. That will give you some insight into what you need to change in order to get something done. I still have a long way to go and I feel like I am still making many mistakes. But hey, the only way to properly learn something, is to have it blow up in your face first :)

[Dave Liao]

@Paul Wiggers - if you like challenges, dive into Trello! I think Trello has the best mobile experience, and you could even use Trello to track your goals and see your progress. That is, if you're not using Jira to do that already. 😉

[Lauren Allen]

Hi Paul!

Thanks for the post.  It's a valuable reminder that I really should start answering more questions in addition to taking advantage of the great resource that is the Atlassian Community. 

In terms of where to start for your certification journey, the recommendation is always ACP-620 first as it is the best introduction to the certification process.  With that in mind the Jira Fundamentals would be a fantastic starting point. 

Having said that, if the majority of your time has been spent in Jira Service Management rather than Jira Software, you may find the ACP-420 is easier for you. 

Either way, because ACP-420 and ACP-620 are both Project Administration certifications I definitely recommend tackling these first and focus on one at a time so you don't get confused, as some of the project admin functions behave differently between the two.

If by doing all of the certification you mean the DC ones as well, you may want to switch to the ACP-610 while doing the ACP-620 although there are some differences there too so it will depend how confident you are switching between the two.

From there I would continue through to ACP-120 while you're on a Jira roll.

Follow that up with a Confluence chaser and a light supper of Trello. 

Good luck with it all and I look forward to hearing more about the journey 

[Paul Wiggers]

Thank you all for your suggestions! Getting a cloud administrator certification is certainly on the roadmap.

For now, the clear winner is Jira Fundamentals. I am looking forward to getting started with this and will keep you posted on the progress in a new article.

[Brittany Joiner]

@Paul Wiggers hahah i feel honored for the mention, and love this idea of content! Like a live journal of your growth and learning! Let me know if you ever wanna do a livestream study session for Trello 😎