Atlassian Summit Review #3: What's new for Jira users
In this, the third and final post in our Atlassian Summit Review series for 2014, we look at some of the announcements about JIRA and unveil one of the most exciting new Atlassian products ever.
JIRA Versions
Although a relatively small feature within JIRA, the concept of a Version has been one of the key components for building successful projects for many years. With an upcoming release of JIRA, the power of the Version is set to increase dramatically. We think it will become a core part of every team's release management process.
Integrations between the different components of the Atlassian Dev Tools suite are increasing as its use becomes more embedded and more strategic. JIRA Versions have been reimagined to become a one-stop-shop for release management.
Of particular interest is the new warnings system which intelligently highlights issues with your Version. For example, has an issue been marked as complete but the linked Bamboo build is still failing? What about if there's still a linked Stash pull request? The reimagined JIRA Versions experience will help you understand these problems before you release.
Atlassian also announced a radical design change which will be coming to JIRA to simplify and streamline the overall user experience. The reimagining of JIRA Versions is the first step towards achieving this goal. We're also seeing some further advances in this area via the JIRA Cloud (ex-On Demand) beta programme.
JIRA Portfolio
It was the final reveal of Atlassian Summit 2014 and, by George, it was a big one! JIRA has for many years been the best-in-class task management system, and over that time it has been applied (with varying levels of success) to perform some Project management duties. With the launch of an entirely new product JIRA Portfolio Atlassian aim to rationalise the process of managing entire portfolios of products and services.
JIRA Portfolio is available right now on the marketplace and I think it's set to be the most exciting development for JIRA since Well, JIRA itself.
By allowing you to define multiple high-level strategic themes for the business and then attaching these themes to business initiatives, development plans can be aligned with business goals more easily than ever. Schedules can be planned in advance, work distributed among teams and specific milestones planned. This allows far greater plan visibility in JIRA than ever before. Moreover, JIRA Portfolio will recommend appropriate resourcing plans to ensure that your teams are able to enact your plans in as efficient a way as possible.
When plans are at risk, JIRA Portfolio will let you know immediately and it will even allow you to create what-if scenarios by moving appropriate resource around the business to discover how best to realise your original plan. For everyone managing a portfolio of projects, JIRA Portfolio provides a deep insight into the projects in your domain, helps you to create your portfolio plans, and ensures that those plans remain valid throughout their lifecycle.
So it's over for another year and Summit 2014 was an amazing experience for all involved. At Adaptavist, we're really excited to see all these changes get implemented over the next year and give us more options for helping clients develop and optimise their application lifecycle. All that's left to say is a massive thank you to Atlassian, and we look forward to seeing you again next year!
