E15 How to Save Your Developers Time: Avoiding Death by JIRA

“I want to be maximizing value. These tools can create a side game that actually is only vaguely and tangentially related to value, perhaps even in a negative way.”

Why do people hate JIRA so much? There is a whole website dedicated to rants calling JIRA out for its oppressive bureaucratic nature and the evangelistic cult created around its adoption across many industries, including the video game industry. What we want to find out is, is it REALLY that bad, especially since it is one of the most popular management tools used to date, or are people just sour they are being forced to use it? When we pick apart this issue, many things are uncovered, but one constant remains, which is that creating value for players is ultimately the goal of any game dev organization.

It's easy to lose sight of that goal (and the players!) when everyone is fixated on being in the green or moving tickets, which is where most of the team’s energy ends up being spent. This is a massive issue that we need to tackle and we think there are solutions. One solution can be found right here in this episode!

Hosts Ben Carcich and Aaron Smith sit down to discuss how management tools like JIRA get a bad rep, and who’s to blame for it. Theoretically, what would happen if we just eliminated management tools all together? Would the entire organization crumble, or would the value of work actually go up instead? As senior leaders themselves, they know and understand this part of the job, and have a five step solution that could dramatically decrease management overhead. That will leave you with more time for adding quality and value and, ultimately, creating better games.

Topics discussed in this episode:

- Why do people hate JIRA so much

- The argument for the benefits of JIRA

- Who is actually benefiting from using JIRA?

- Why do we inflict JIRA on our dev teams?

- The frightening amount of time teams spend moving tickets

- Is value actually added if a ticket is closed?

- What would happen if we eliminated management tools?

- Incentivizing delivering on JIRA vs. delivering actual value

- What is the solution to the “JIRA Overhead” issue: 5 step process

- How to lower the overhead for your team

- Something you can measure right now that CAN add value

- Advice for leaders

- The cultural impact of management systems

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