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by marginalia_nu 514 days ago
I think 99% of the problems with Jira stem from trying to use it for too many things at the same time.

If it's used for tracking issues, it's great.

If a team just uses it for keeping track of its ongoing work, it ok.

If the team also uses it to plan work, it works less well.

If management also uses it to keep track of what the team is doing, it works even less well, because now the team needs to put on a show for management with the tool it needs to track and plan its work. Now issues need to be phrased in a way so that they aren't causing outsiders to worry. Maybe don't say "problem" or "bug" so often. Use an euphemism. Can't we word it in a less concerning way?

If upper management has a dashboard of all departments' boards, you get nested Potemkin villages where the jira tasks are performative for both middle management, who in turn try to dress things up even more for upper management. At this point, the team (which still needs to track its issues and ongoing work) likely has a secret second issue tracker via post-it notes on a door somewhere.

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> At this point, the team (which still needs to track its issues and ongoing work) likely has a secret second issue tracker via post-it notes on a door somewhere.

This. In my case, it was the whiteboard. It was at a place I worked ~decade ago, where everyone was using Jira for the official work management. That included management, but also included everyone in the electronics production and assembly branch of the company, so it was funny to compare our meticulously described sprint items with co-workers burning through dozens of entries a day, named by just long incrementing numbers.