Covid-19 changed the game, making remote work and distributed team members the norm. I think we all sense that something fundamental has changed in the nature of work, and many of these changes will persist even after the pandemic. Like it or not, whiteboards and sticky notes can no longer cut it. We have to use Agile tools. So... which one? In this talk Craeg will do an in-depth walkthrough of two leading Agile tools: Atlassian Jira and Kanbanize. He will review the philosophy of each tool, and then walk through a fully featured simulation, complete with sample projects, plugins, and project configurations, that show off the best that each tool has to offer. Atlassian Jira is a “developer’s tool,” and this heritage shows through clearly in the way it is set up, how the pieces fit together, and the problems it tries to solve. But this is really only a small part of the Jira story. The Jira plugin marketplace has exploded in popularity, with hundreds of high-quality plugins that extend Jira in all sorts of interesting ways. Craeg will demonstrate a Jira configuration that includes plugins including Nave, Structure, Structure.Gantt, Checklist, Story Maps, and JXL. Taken together, these plugins transform Jira into an Enterprise-strength tool. Craeg will explore how Jira supports both Kanban and Scrum at the team level, as well as scaling beyond the team level. In addition, Craeg will briefly discuss the elephant in the room, Jira Align, and why he still prefers the “augmented Jira” approach. Kanbanize is the market leader among a set of up-and-coming Kanban tools including Kaiten, Swift Kanban, Kanban Zone, and LeanKit. Craeg will explore how Jira supports both Kanban and Scrum at the team level, as well as scaling beyond the team level. In contrast to Jira, Kanbanize offers a “batteries included” approach that tightly integrates features in a unique and highly usable interface. Craeg will explore the areas of overlap and the unique strengths of each tool. In the end, both are highly capable, flexible, and powerful enough to support even the largest of organizations. But...in the end there can be only one. Come to see the results of this legendary battle!

1. Lean In Government 2022
February 16, 2022, 2:30pm EST
Jira and Kanbanize:
Clash of the Titans
Craeg K. Strong, CTO, Savant Financial Technologies, Inc.
d/b/a Ariel Partners

2. Agenda
1. About me
2. Customer Context
3. Needs Analysis
4. Kanbanize Demonstration
5. Jira Cloud Demonstration
6. Key Takeaways, Q&A

3. 4/21/22
Confidential © Copyright Ariel Partners 2022
3
1. Ariel/ECS Relationship
1. Ariel/ECS Relationship
1. About Me

4. Craeg Strong § Software Development since 1988
§ Large Commercial & Government Projects
§ Kanban Coach / DevOps Engineer
§ Kanban Trainer / SpecFlow Trainer
§ Performance & Scalability Architect
§ Certified Ethical Hacker
§ New York & Washington DC Area
CTO, Ariel Partners
AKT, KCP, KMP, CSM, CSP, CSPO,
ITILv3, PMI-ACP, PMP, CLP, SPC,
ICP-ACC, ICP-ATF, PSM-II, PSK
www.arielpartners.com
cstrong@arielpartners.com
@ckstrong1

5. Ariel Coaching/Training Courses
Atlassian Suite
1. Jira Fundamentals
2. Jira Intermediate
3. Jira Advanced
4. Jira Service Desk
5. Team Spaces in Confluence
6. Git and Bitbucket
Technical Practices
1. Specification By Example
2. BDD & Automated Acceptance Testing
3. Git and GitHub
4. Hands-On DevSecOps with Docker
5. Microservices Design Patterns
6. SRE: Site Reliability Engineering
7. AI/ML Bootcamp
Agile Transformation
1. Fundamentals of Agile
2. Agile for Leaders & Executives
3. Human Centered Design
4. Agile Requirements: Story Mapping,
Splitting & Discovery Kanban
5. Agile Forecasting & Metrics
6. Digital Transformation with Kanban Flight
Levels
Agile Certifications
1. Team Kanban Practitioner
2. Kanban Management Professional
3. Kanban Maturity Model
4. SAFe Scrum Master / Adv SM
5. SAFe Product Owner
6. SAFe Release Train Engineer

6. 4/21/22
Confidential © Copyright Ariel Partners 2022
6
1. Ariel/ECS Relationship
1. Ariel/ECS Relationship
2. Case Study Context

7. Context: Online Learning Company
qMission: Help K-8 Students to love and excel at Math
qPrimary school lessons in production Now
qUsers nearly 1/3 of all US Students
qExtending into Elementary and Secondary School Grades
qDelivery: Roughly one grade-worth of material per calendar year
7

8. Anatomy of Curriculum Work Items
Grade 7
G7
Mission 1
G7
Mission 2
G7
Mission 3
G7
Mission 4
G7
Mission 5
G7
Mission 9
G7
Mission 6
G7
Mission 7
G7
Mission 8
G7M8
Lesson 1
G7M8
Lesson 2
G7M8
Lesson 3
G7M8
Lesson 4
G7M8
Lesson 10
G7M8
Lesson 11
G7M8
Lesson 12
G7M8
Lesson 13
G7M8
Lesson 5
G7M8
Lesson 6
G7M8
Lesson 7
G7M8
Lesson 8
G7M8
Lesson 14
G7M8
Lesson 15
G7M8
Lesson 16
G7M8
Lesson 17
G7M8
Lesson 9
G7M8
Lesson 18

9. Development Teams: Pivotal
q Started with Scrum
q Using Pivotal Tracker
q Sprints did not work well
§ significant unplanned work
§ Significant Fixed-date work
§ Significant coordination with other specialist teams (academics, video production, instructional designers)

10. Instructional Designer Teams: Asana
qLargely Date-Driven
qUsing Asana
qMany disparate tasks to coordinate
qMultiple external stakeholders

11. Excel Timeline Planning

12. Summary
qRegular weekly deployments to Production every Thursday
qConstant improvements throughout, especially for scalability
qMany dependencies for lessons: rescheduling is difficult
§ Scheduled video production date
§ Voice actors
§ Teachers
§ Script
§ Unique Interface features (e.g., mystery bag manipulative)
qNew material cannot go “live” until entire grade is finished
qInterface is brand new– significant rework is expected
qEach grade is more difficult and time consuming than the last

13. 4/21/22
Confidential © Copyright Ariel Partners 2022
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1. Ariel/ECS Relationship
1. Ariel/ECS Relationship
3. Needs Analysis

14. Work Systems Topology
qBig Picture
qTeams in Purple
qNeed to coordinate?
Blue
qStrategy ties value
streams to mission,
annual goals, OKRs

15. Three Levels of Connected Boards

16. Initial Kanban Tool Requirements
Prepared for Zearn 16
Category Feature Description
1 Basic Kanban Support Flexible Board Design We can capture our workflows
2 Flexible Ticket Design Visualize dependencies, urgency, etc.
3 Quick Filters Quickly zero in on important issues
4 WIP Policies By person, conwip, capwip, min and max
5 Browse / Search Tagging Group things in arbitrary ways
6 Searching
7 Metrics Basic Kanban Metrics Throughput, cycle time, cumulative flow, WIP Aging
8 Segregate metrics by type
9 Multiple Views Linked Boards
10 Progress Bars Show progress of child cards in parent
11 Calendar view Be able to show fixed date vs due date
12 Planning Story Mapping
13 Forecasting Monte Carlo Simulation Forecasting
14 Integration GitHub integration Show Pull Requests, Branches, Merges
15 Build Integration Display builds linked to user story
16 Slack/Email Integration Notify for certain events

17. Short-Listed Tools
17

18. Eliminated
Kanban Zone
qCannot show same card on more
than one board
qNo card labels or stickers
qNo Monte Carlo forecasting
qNo calendar/timeline view
Kaiten & LeanKit
qNo Monte Carlo forecasting
Swift Kanban
qExpensive
qUsability Issues (subjective)
Jira Align
qVery Expensive

19. Different Philosophies
Batteries Included
Let 1,000 Plugins Bloom
Software Engineering Support
Is Most Important
Planning & Coordinating Work
Is Most Important
Scrum First Kanban First

20. Structured
Decision Making
Caveat: This is a moving
target; things have
changed considerably
since mid-2021

21. 4/21/22
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1. Ariel/ECS Relationship
1. Ariel/ECS Relationship
4. Kanbanize Demo

22. Lesson Production
Product Design Team
Manipulatives Team
Content Authoring Team
CMS Team
Visual/UX Design Team Student Interface Team
Educator Interface Team
Video Production Team
Visualize Board Relationships On Dashboard
Upstream Team
(Discovery Kanban)
Downstream Team
(Delivery Kanban)
LEGEND:

23. Discovery Kanban Board: UX Design Team

24. Generating a related card UX card ßà User story

25. Educator Interface: Delivery Kanban Board

26. Flight Level 2: Coordination Boards
q Timeline view
shows bar by
planned start &
end dates
q Grades up top
q Missions Below
q All child features
and user stories
are displayed
q Progress bar
q Run MCS to check
if we are on track
to complete by the
due date

27. Flight Level 3: Strategy WORK IN PROGRESS

28. 4/21/22
Confidential © Copyright Ariel Partners 2022
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1. Ariel/ECS Relationship
1. Ariel/ECS Relationship
5. Jira Demo

29. Discovery Kanban Board: UX Design Team

30. Generating a related card UX card ßà User story
Create User Story
Global Looping Transition
Brings up Popup to specify
new User Story

31. Educator Interface: Delivery Kanban Board

32. Flight Level 2: Coordination Board via Structure
qAll child and grandchild stories are shown
qCumulative numbers shown at right
qUse Actionable Agile MCS to check if we are on track to
complete by the due date

33. Flight Level 2: Coordination Board via Structure Gantt
qAdvantage: shows entire hierarchy in one tree rather than
across multiple boards
qTimelines set via start date, due date fields

34. Why Not Advanced Roadmaps?
qOnly a single hierarchy, cannot support multiple (e.g.,
Curriculum and App Features)
qChanges do not get reflected immediately– you publish later
and there can be synchronization issues
qData driven, hard to change via drag and drop
qMore expensive than Structure + Structure.Gantt
qNo ability to do calculations on the rollups in the tabular left-
hand view like cumulative story points or cumulative numbers
of stories
qOnly works with dependencies, not other types of links

35. 4/21/22
Confidential © Copyright Ariel Partners 2022
35
1. Ariel/ECS Relationship
1. Ariel/ECS Relationship
5. Key Takeaways
Q & A

36. Comparing the Tools
Kanbanize Cannot
1. Display build and deployment level
information
2. Display PR and code changeset
results all in one area
3. Display Quick Filter buttons
4. Use a query Language (no JQL)
5. Display non-workflow
“informational” columns (e.g., OKRs)
Jira Cloud Cannot
1. Tell us if we are on track with one click
2. Drag and drop across swim lanes
3. Display segmented columns (e.g.,
blocker area)
4. WIP limit spans multiple columns
5. Colorize full card (only left edge)
6. Display non-web images in dashboards
7. Display non-workflow “informational”
columns (e.g., OKRs)

37. Jira Plugins Used
Third Party App Where Used
1 Easy Agile User Story Maps • User story mapping
2 55 Degrees AB Actionable Agile Analytics • Actionable Agile Dashboard Report
• Forecasting with Monte Carlo Simulation
3 Atlassian Rich Text Gadget • Add images to the dashboard
4 eazyBI • Missing Dashboard Charts needed for Kanban teams
• Cycle Time Per Story Point Set Report
5 ALM Works Structure • Coordination Level Boards
6 ALM Works Structure.Gantt • Timelines
7 Atlassian Automation for Jira • Automatically create related stories
• Automatic creation of sub-tasks
8 Adaptavist ScriptRunner • issueFunction JQL
• Blockers and Cycle Time scripted fields
9 Beecom Jira Suite Utilities (JSU) • Clear Field Post-function
• Convenience functions for workflows
10 Gebsun Software Recurring Tasks for Jira • Repeating user stories or tasks
11 Deviniti Issue Templates for Jira • Pre-fill stories with “as a I want so that”, etc.
12 Okapya Checklist for Jira • Checklists for stories, tasks, progress bars
4/21/22
Confidential © Copyright Ariel Partners 2022

38. Key Takeaways
§ Both Jira and Kanbanize are highly capable tools
§ With Plugins, Jira can support portfolio planning, even without Align
§ Jira May be Better for Teams looking primarily for deep integration with
DevSecOps
§ Kanbanize may be better for teams looking for initiative-level planning and
tracking capabilities
§ Base Jira is Cheaper; with plugins Kanbanize is cheaper

39. Thank You!
Other Offerings
§ Digital Transformation
§ Cloud Native App Development
§ Agile / Kanban Coaching
§ DevOps Jumpstart
§ Compliance As Code
§ Test Automation Jumpstart
§ Legacy Modernization
§ JIRA Jumpstart
Training Offerings
§ Fundamentals of Agile
§ Agile for Leaders & Executives
§ Kanban Management Professional
§ Professional Scrum
§ Human Centered Design
§ BDD With Cucumber Acceptance Testing
§ Agile Estimation, Forecasting, & Metrics
§ Agile Requirements
www.arielpartners.com
cstrong@arielpartners.com
Twitter: @arielpartners