Lesson 1 July 12th 2023

Lesson 1 Summary 

We have covered the following topics:

Introductions: The meeting started with introductions and a brief overview of the course. The instructor introduced himself, shared his experience as a project manager, scrum master, and agile coach. He also explained the course outline and what topics they would cover.

Course Overview: The instructor provided an overview of what they would be covering in the course. They would explore team-managed and company-managed projects, and configure Scrum and Kanban projects up to their core with every possible configuration that exists. They will also look into project administration, advanced workflows, and automation processes that can be automated in instances.

Types of Projects: Two types of Jira projects were discussed - team-managed and company-managed projects. Team-managed is more simplified for small teams or simple projects where you need basic configurations required for a limited time while Company Managed is recommended for large software teams or larger scale workflows requiring advanced features.

Project Configuration: The instructor showed examples of both types of Jira project configurations - team-managed & company-managed- to help participants understand how each type works differently from one another based on their requirements.

Q&A Session: Participants were encouraged to ask questions throughout the session if anything was unclear or needed clarification about any topic covered during this training session so far.

Project Creation: The meeting discussed the process of creating a project in Jira, including choosing a template and setting up project details such as name and key. Participants were guided through the steps to create their own projects.

Board Configuration: The meeting covered board configuration in Jira, including general settings, location, filter queries, columns, and swimlanes. Participants were encouraged to explore these settings on their own.

Jira Search: The meeting briefly touched upon Jira search and its use for filtering issues based on various criteria such as issue type or status.

Team-Managed vs Company-Managed Projects: There was a discussion about the differences between team-managed projects and company-managed projects in terms of flexibility and complexity level required for setup/administration.

Questions/Confusion Clarification: Throughout the meeting, there were opportunities for participants to ask questions or seek clarification on any topics discussed so far.

Board Filters: The meeting discussed how to create and save filters for Jira boards. It was explained that filters can be based on various criteria, such as project or issue type, and can be saved for future use. The process of sharing board filters with specific groups or individuals was also covered.

Ranking: The topic of ranking issues in Jira boards was discussed. It was explained that ranking allows users to prioritize issues based on their order of appearance in the backlog or board view. Users have the option to choose between ascending or descending order and can reorder issues as needed.

Board Columns: This topic covered the concept of workflows in Jira projects and how they are visualized through columns on a board. It was explained that users have control over which workflow steps are represented by each column and their order within the board view.

Swimlanes: The team explored swimlanes to section off their Jira boards. They discussed using swimlanes based on epics, assignees, projects, queries, or priorities.
The team discussed how swimlanes can be used to group tasks based on their categories or types. They also talked about using story swim lanes for subtasks and other issue-type swimlanes for independent issues. 

Status and Columns: The meeting discussed the creation of new statuses and columns in Jira, including how to map them to the appropriate categories. The team also covered how to group statuses under a single column for easier navigation. They emphasized that independent board configuration only affects that particular board and not the entire project.

Queries: Queries were highlighted as an essential tool for finding specific issues within Jira boards. 

Resolution Date: In this topic, the meeting covered the resolution date in Jira as an indicator that an issue has been completed rather than closed status used by other systems. They also mentioned strike-throughs on resolved issues.

Prioritization: The team discussed how to prioritize tasks by assigning them different levels of priority such as high, medium, low, and lowest. They also discussed the importance of arranging the priorities in a specific order to resolve conflicts between queries.

Quick Filters: The team discussed the benefits of using quick filters in Jira to filter out issues quickly based on release versions, epics, or people. They emphasized that only board administrators can create quick filters.

Card Colors and Layout: The meeting discussed the importance of using card colors to differentiate between different types of issues in a backlog. This helps when dealing with a large number of issues, making it easier to identify them based on their color. The meeting also emphasized that users can choose to base the colors on priorities or any other relevant criteria. Additionally, the layout of cards was discussed, and users were advised to add up to three fields in their backlog view or board view.

Working Days: Another topic covered during the meeting was working days. It was explained that this feature is only board-related and allows users to indicate which days they have off work so that reporting related to this particular report is affected accordingly. For example, if there are public holidays when team members will be off work, these dates can be added as "off" dates so that statistics are not calculated against them.

Card Detailed View: The third topic covered during the meeting was card detailed view management through tabs. Users were advised on how they could add fields such as the due date by going into date fields at the issue detailed views tab and selecting the due date from there.

Homework Assignment: Towards the end of the session, participants were given homework assignments along with course materials for further reading based on questions asked during class discussions or things deemed important by instructors for students' understanding before the next sessions commence.