Practical JIRA Administration

Chapter 11. Jiraargh! Frustrations

Overview

I once wrote an article with the provocative title Bug Trackers: Do They Really All Suck?. My conclusion was probably not, but that they are all annoying in some way. Why is this? My theory is that it’s because tools such as JIRA are used by multiple groups of people. This means that each group has different needs from the same tool, which in turn leads to no one being fully satisfied. However, the advantages of using a single tool can often outweigh the functionality of separate tools.

So what can be done? I think the first thing to remember is that every problem is at root a people problem (Jerry Weinberg). What that means for you and your JIRA is that decisions about using the tool need to be discussed and agreed upon by the people who use the tool. Tools can only help to reduce the barriers for people and groups working together; there is no magic tool to make people want to work together.

That said, this chapter describes some of the more common frustrations with JIRA and possible ways to avoid some of them. These include both things that annoy users if not configured properly by administrators, and aspects of JIRA that annoy JIRA administrators.

Add-Ons That Should Be Standard

There are some useful, well-supported, and even free (zero cost) add-ons that I install in almost every JIRA instance that I configure. This suggests to me that their functionality should be part of the core JIRA functionality. My four standard add-ons are currently: ...