[vosper]

> This blog is not about how Jira is too complex and over-engineered with features I don’t need.

This blogpost is a microcosm of engineer arrogance (it's also an ad for their product, so all of this is basically a strawman to drive sign-ups. Great content marketing, to bash on a tool people love to hate).

The world is not all about engineers. Jira is a tool for whole companies, which have lots of other departments than Engineering, which are also important, also trying to reach their goals.

I'm so sorry that you got pulled out of your "deep flow" state because an executive is trying to figure out if a project is at risk. You know, she might have a really good reason to worry about that, maybe including information you don't have, like a potential customer who is at risk if the feature doesn't ship.

So suck it up and help out your colleagues.

And if you don't want to be interrupted, then maybe keep your tickets up-to-date, or proactively communicate risks, or sign out of Slack for a few hours, or get your manager to do their job better and be a buffer to protect you from interruptions. None of this is Jira's fault.

Can Jira be a PITA to use - sure, but that's probably because of how your company set it up. You can make Jira streamlined if you try, but it takes active administration, and the people who work in Jira need to be empowered to work on Jira. If you can't get your Jira project to work the way you need, then that sucks, but that's probably Jira being a microcosm of your company's org/power structure, which is a different thing.

Or sign-up for their product, that's really the goal of this post.

Edit: I did not intend to claim that all, or even most, engineers are arrogant people. They certainly are not, at least in my experience. If you are an engineer (I am one, too) please don't read this as me attacking you personally! I am aiming at this kind of blog post, which displays a me-first attitude that I think is unhealthy.

[commandlinefan]

> engineer arrogance

And this is the twilight-zone reality that software developers are forever stuck in:

Manager: "I need you to integrate the TPS reports with JIRA for a client"

Developer: "Ok, I can look into that"

Manager: "How long is that going to take? Put some story points on the JIRA task."

Developer: "Well, I've never done that before, so I'll have to do some research and I can't really say for sure-"

Manager: "I need you to say for sure. Knock it off with your engineer arrogance and suck it up and help your colleagues. I'm so sorry that I pulled you out of your 'deep flow' state but we're trying to reach our goals here"

Developer: (heavy sigh) "Well, a week maybe? If I can focus on just this and not all the other things I'm currently tasked with-"

Manager: "No, subtask it out to individual tasks of no more than four hours each. And you'll need to spend an hour every day in a status meeting so you can spend five minutes updating the status of your subtasks and listening to everybody else's unrelated statuses".

[vosper]

I believe that this kind of work environment must exist, because it's such a strong trope, but honestly I've never really worked in a place like this. I'm sorry for people who do, and who feel stuck there. Not all software engineering is like this.

But if I had a work environment like this, I would be blaming management, and not Jira.

And I should have been clear: not many engineers are actually "how dare you interrupt me, I'm an ENGINEER" types, in my experience.

But I guess I've seen enough blog posts that are so precious about being a software engineer, and so (perhaps unintentionally) dismissive of other people in the org who are also trying to do their jobs, that I probably got triggered a little.

[xmprt]

I've never seen a manager operate like that and if yours does then you should look into moving.

[commandlinefan]

Maybe I've had a 30-year string of bad luck.

[phendrenad2]

Considering the litte morality play you typed out includes the exact "developer arrogance" and "flow state" quotes from the OP, I'm guessing this is an exaggeration in anger and it's impossible to argue with until you provide a non-exaggerated example of your 30-year work environment.

[outworlder]

> and listening to everybody else's unrelated statuses

This so much. Status meetings tend to follow the org's structure, which is not necessarily logical.

Yes, it is occasionally helpful to listen to something completely unrelated if you have a better perspective. But every day? Waste of time.

[outworlder]

> And if you don't want to be interrupted, then maybe keep your tickets up-to-date

My tickets are up to date. Doesn't matter, I'll still get asked about them.

> or proactively communicate risks

Then you are not a team player and such negativity is frowned upon.

> or sign out of Slack for a few hours

While working from home? Are you even working if you are offline?

> or get your manager to do their job better and be a buffer to protect you from interruptions.

Oh yeah. Because telling your superior to do a better job is an outstanding thing to do for your long term work prospects.

[vosper]

> telling your superior to do a better job is an outstanding thing to do for your long term work prospects.

I would hope there's a way to approach that conversation which doesn't involve telling your manager to "do a better job", but which still gets the outcome you're looking for :)

[rabidrat]

> get your manager to do their job better

"This arrogant engineer I manage just told me how to do my job better! I've already assigned them 14 story points in JIRA, what more do they want me to do?"

[scrozart]

This is spot on in my experience. My company is 2+ years into JIRA adoption and it's been messy because everyone tried to bend it to be like the best previous tool, interested of starting with, and honestly evaluating, the default configurations. Now, most teams are slowly circling back to defaults. I find the PM stuff, like Plans, to be fairly well implemented, as are the notifications.

If JIRA has any core issues, it's that it may be _too_ flexible; you can definitely overcomplicate things and get yourself into trouble.

[httpsterio]

Jira as a representative of process is not bad and the visibility it offers, like you said, is valuable to people outside of your teams as well. But Jira as a product itself is horrid. It's janky, slow and overly complex even for simple things. No matter how much money you throw at it, creating a ticket or updating an epic just takes way too much time and mental effort.

There's a ton of better alternatives, Basecamp, Asana and Trello for example. Sure, they can't be configured as deeply as Jira, but they don't make me want to kill myself either.