My Jira Projects are highly customized. Can I use The Agile Projector?
Yes!
The Projector is primarily driven by a few key inputs:
- effort days,
- assignee,
- issue rank, and
- dependencies (“is blocked by” in Jira).
All you need to do is map your fields, issue types and statuses to those data points.
When you sign in with your Atlassian account, you give The Agile Projector permission to query your existing Projects for all standard and custom fields, issue types and statuses. When you configure the Projector on the Projectors Setup page with its associated Jira Project, The Agile Projector will present you with the full list, which you can then use to map them to what the Projector needs.
Note: Because we drive the schedule based on effort days, we only pull in Issues that have effort days set and > 0.
You can review the JQL generated by your configuration to see how your customizations will effect what is pulled in for Projecting.
What should be true about my Jira Projects and workflows to make The Agile Projector most effective?
It helps to think of your backlog and work in progress as a dependency tree, with each vector connecting each node (Issue) having a length equal to the effort days. Under the covers, The Projector builds this tree, turns it 90 degrees into a calendar, and allows you to apply customizations at the Team Member and Team levels that affect the node lengths and gaps via who is available to work on what, and when, and to visualize what various sequencing and assignments will mean for delivery dates of any node in the tree.
That’s a complicated way of saying that we need this tree and team to reflect as much of the full reality of your projects as possible. A simple way to think about it is:
- The more dedicated your team is to a Project, the more accurate the Projection will be.
- The more disciplined your team is with working on one item at a time and in order, the more accurate the Projection will be.
- The more complete the list of Issues in the Projector is of all the Issues your team is working on, the more accurate the Projection will be.
- The more each Issue has a dedicated owner for the lifecycle of the Projection, the more accurate the Projection will be.
Do I need to manage API keys or user credentials for The Agile Projector?
You do not need to manage API keys or user credentials for The Agile Projector. All you need to do is sign on with your Atlassian Account and the rest is taken care of automatically.
You talk about how The Agile Projector frees us from “high overhead agile rituals and predicting velocity with statistics and abstract story pointing strategies”. Does this mean we have to stop using Sprints, Kanban, Burn Down charts, Fibonacci pointing, Big Group Planning, Daily Standups, or any of the other things we currently use and rely on?
You absolutely can keep doing all of those things. So long as you are providing your Projectors with the data points they need, you can have the best of both worlds.
It is likely that as you gain skill and experience Projecting, you will find many of those rituals and processes redundant or not worth the calories for the information quality they generate vs. what the Projector is doing for you. But don’t take our word for it – give it a try and let us know what you discover!