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In this installment of our blog series on Team '21, Isos Technology gives its take on some important announcements Atlassian made during last month's virtual event. Learn more about Compass, Team Central, and Jira Product Discovery in our interview-style write up below!
Compass
Thad West:
All right. I want to shift gears a little bit. Rodney, so Compass, what did you see there? What's exciting about that?
Rodney West:
Compass addresses some cool things. Whenever I talk to a client, I'll ask them, "Hey, how are you using the developer panel and how are you using the release app?" What Compass does, it takes all that to the next level so it's more of a bird's eye view of really everything that's going on.
So instead of just having some more straightforward metrics, it gives you detailed information on where things exist. It's a lot more searchable, so you can search across components, it provides a central location especially for project managers to look in and see what's going on in Jira, concerning your broader outer development state. That was exciting for me. So that's one of the things I always talk about whenever I start a client engagement and the client is like, "Hey, we're not able to see our developer information and our issues."
Thad West:
And Compass is still in alpha. Is that right?
Rodney West:
Yeah. It is. I think before Atlassian had even stopped speaking during the keynote, I went ahead and signed up for the alpha on this. And so I have a lot of excitement around just playing with this new tool and getting my hands dirty and seeing how this functions and what benefit it can give to teams.
Thad West:
That's cool. Yeah. I know a lot of the Atlassian team members I talk to, they're like, "Hey, did you see Compass?" So I know that they've been using it internally and are excited about it and it solves a problem. So I signed up for the list and I want to check it out, too.
Team Central and Jira Product Discovery
Thad West:
Tracy, what did you see out of these new products for our project and product owners? There were a couple in there.
Tracy Walton:
Atlassian is focused on unleashing the potential of all teams, and Team Central is focusing on those teams who care about projects and updates to projects. Team Central gives them a centralized location to get updates about the things that they care about. Now, you have a specific idea about what a project means for anybody who's ever worked in Jira. It has a specific meaning inside Jira and now Team Central has come out and it promises to make updates real fast and easy like sending a tweet, and people can follow the updates on the projects and goals they care about.
A big question on my mind relates to Team Central and the tracking of projects and goals. How's that going to tie into Jira? And I'm not the only person asking that question, it's been out there in the community, and they have promised a blog on this topic as a follow up. So I think that there's still a lot more to be discovered about how this is all going to tie together. Still, suppose you're a team in your organization or many teams that have projects working towards business goals and objectives. In that case, this is a great place to eliminate status meetings and focus on what you need to do. And you're not running around and giving everybody updates.
Thad West:
Yeah. I love it.
Tracy Walton:
That's Team Central. It's going to start as a free edition, but it has a lot of potential to grow and address all the software development agile teams that we've loved and adored inside of Jira software.
Tracy Walton:
I also want to talk about Jira Product Discovery which is still a mystery. We got flashes of a couple of ideas that they'll be offering. It's still in alpha and you can sign up as well, but this is Atlassian saying, "Hey, we're listening to you if you are a product owner or a product manager and you have your ear to the ground, and you're collecting ideas, you're the one in the center of all the things that happened before it gets to the teams to execute."
And so Product Discovery is meant to be that place where you can collect those ideas, and display them now and later for the beginning of a roadmap. So they have mentioned how it's going to tie into Jira, where the idea would turn into a Jira epic and keep the connection. That context goes to the team to understand why they're working on what they're working on.
A little tidbit though, Jira Product Discovery hits the same thread that some of the functionality in Jira Align offers. So in Jira Align, there is an ideation portal, there's voting available for product management to track ideas. So I'm interested to see how those two products converge, or if they ever do. But that was interesting to me to see, "Oh, there are new products that have similar functionality. How's that going to play out?"
Thad West:
That is interesting; maybe it's solving that problem where Jira Align is for enterprise organizations, but Jira Product Discovery addresses, "How do we start to bring that down to the rest of us, right?"
Tracy Walton:
I like that. Yes.
Thad West:
Yeah, that's interesting. All of this stuff, by the way, is at atlassian.com/point-a
To be continued ...
Read the whole series or watch the webinar:
- Part 1 - Point A, Jira Work Management, Trello
- Part 2 - Compass, Team Central, Jira Product Discovery
- Part 3 - Halp, ProForma, Think Tilt. Mindville
- Part 4 - JiraAlign, DevOps, Cloud, Forge, Data Center
- Part 5 - What features excited you the most?
- Part 6 - What were your favorite presentations?
Watch the webinar and get the slides here.
Speakers
Thad West
CEO, Isos Technology
Nick Nader
Atlassian Solutions Engineer, Isos Technology
A Solutions Engineer for Isos Technology, Nick is based out of Arlington, VA. He has a technical background with software test automation, quality assurance, and CI/CD lifecycle. Nick has always been interested in innovative technologies, which led him to pursue two technical degrees from Penn State University. He is accredited in Atlassian tools with certifications in Jira Service Management, Agile with Jira, and he’s a Certified SAFe Program Consultant. Nick has a passion for technology and a knack for deconstructing the tools' concepts into easy-to-understand explanations.
Rodney West
Senior Atlassian Consultant, Isos Technology
Senior Atlassian Consultant, Isos Technology
Tracy Walton
Senior Atlassian Consultant, Isos Technology
Tracy Walton's consulting is a unique blend of her passion for leading teams, her product expertise, and 10 years of hands-on experience in agile software development in a variety of products and industries, including Digital Marketing, Customer Relationship Management, Subscription Billing, and Compensation Analysis. She is an Atlassian Certified Professional: Agile for Jira and Jira Software Administrator and holds additional certifications as a Scrum Master and Life Coach.
