JSM
I've rescued over 100 Jira Service Management implementations. Healthcare companies. Banks. Retailers. Tech startups. Government agencies. And you know what? They all make the same five mistakes. Not variations. The same five mistakes. The good news? Once you understand what these mistakes are, you can avoid them entirely—
Jira
I recently inherited a client's Jira instance with 25 statuses in their workflow. Twenty-five. When I presented the workflow diagram to the stakeholders, they shrugged. The managers said "it seems detailed." But the people actually doing the work? They told me it was a nightmare. "
confluence
Confluence is the underdog of the Atlassian stack. Not as much as it used to be, but there are still so many companies that don't use it. Or they have it, but barely touch it. They think of it as "just a documentation portal" - somewhere
Jira
Let me tell you about the worst Jira instance I've ever inherited, but just before we start a quick info. Atlassian a while ago changed the naming convention from Custom Field to Fields. 300+ (custom) Fields. Three hundred. When I started the audit, I found: * "Priority"
Jira
Introduction: Dashboards Are NOT Dead Let me address something I hear from clients constantly: "Mike, are dashboards still relevant? Should we even bother?" My answer: Absolutely yes. And here's why this question keeps coming up—and why the answer matters more than ever. After 14 years
Jira
The Clock Is Ticking: Atlassian's Data Center End-of-Life Timeline Atlassian has made it official: Data Center is being retired, and the countdown has begun. Here are the critical dates every Data Center customer needs to know: * March 30, 2026: End of license sales to new customers (16 months
Sponsored by Vilisoft Real client scenario: "Mike, we clone the same epic structure every sprint. 50 issues. Different assignees, dates, priorities. Takes us 2-3 hours of manual work every two weeks." My response: "What if I told you that could be 2 minutes instead?" Their reaction:
API
Sponsored by Adaptavist My reaction when I first saw HAPI: "Are you saying the left side equals the right side?" "Yes, identical behavior." "No, you're shi**ing me." That was my genuine reaction. I still smile thinking about it. After 14+ years
JSM
Confession time: People are terrified of SLAs (Service Level Agreements) in JSM. I see it constantly. New to JSM? Start with What is JSM for the overview. "SLAs feel like a police officer watching everything we do." "We'll never meet the targets, so why set
JSM
Let me be brutally honest: JSM Knowledge Base is outdated. It hasn't changed significantly in 10 years. The search is imprecise. The control is limited. It's... not great. New to JSM? Start with What is JSM. But here's the reality: If you're
JSM
Controversial statement: If you're not using Forms in JSM, you're wasting time and making life harder than it needs to be. New to JSM? Start with What is JSM. After 14+ years consulting, I use Forms in approximately 95% of JSM implementations. Not traditional request types—
Controversial take: Jira Work Management is Atlassian's best product that nobody talks about. After 14+ years consulting, I've seen every project management tool. Trello, Asana, Monday, ClickUp, Smartsheet—all of them. But here's what happened last month that convinced me JWM is special: I