JIRA Sandbox

[Pete Jones]

Hi,

I am new to JIRA and am using it an commercial environment.  Is there a sandbox that I could use to try some stuff out (I would rather experiment in a safe place than risk fouling up my employers projects)?

Any suggestions would be appreciated

Thanks

ete

[Mirek · Accepted solution]

There is one suggestion. Just download JIRA installer, then use it to install and generate a evaluation license and you would be able to test JIRA for 30days for FREE.

[Pete Jones]

thanks, could be an option. I will take a look over the weekend

[Pete Jones]

Just had a play and have some basic understanding.  I think I need to go down the developer licence route as I need to play a lot:)

It seems my colleagues are using JIRA language when talking about way's of working They seem to see Scrum as being totally separate to Kanban whereas I see a scrum board as a minimal Kanban board - so we should be able to evolve our current scrum board to incorporate more pure kanban stuff (something to play with that will take quite a bit of time)

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

It's the other way around really. 

Kanban and Scrum both represent your issues as cards on boards, split into columns which are groups of status.  You move cards between columns to show status updates, and consider cards in the last column as "done". 

Kanban has a simple "clear the last column button when appropriate"

Scrum has a LOT more functionality - sprints (time-boxing), estimates, and velocity  and then there are the Scrum rituals you also do outside the application.

If you want to look at an equivalence between them, then it is the other way around - Kanban is a minimalised Scrum, losing sprints and velocity and de-emphasising the estimates back to the basic "when" or "how long before it's done".

[Pete Jones]

This could become a very long debate!

My take is that Kanban is about flow and visualisation (and ideally a pull system), the typical scrum board seems to be a pruned kanban board.

In my current business environment I see us evolving to use a mix of Kanban together with some other agile tools (MoSCoW prioritisation, Sprints / time boxes, retro's and agile contracts etc.).  These things are simply a kit of tools and should be applied as and when they're needed

Some of this stuff goes far beyond Scrum.... which is why I am more into Agnostic Agile than a particular framework (it's about doing what is needed in the leanest form possible)

Your "kanban is a minimalist scrum" statement is wide of the mark.  Kanban has been around for a long old time.  Suggest you take a look at Anderson's Kanban for Software book!  When people are religious about a particular framework they miss out on a lot of good stuff.

Pete

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

I don't think there's a debate here.  Kanban is a lot more simple than Scrum because there's less process behind it, and a lot less data on the board. 

Everywhere I see Scrum and Kanban boards used alongside each other, the Kanban boards are always vastly more simple than Scrum.

But I don't see them as being particularly equivalent or comparable to be honest.  They've both got colums to represent the flow, and cards in them, and everything else could be totally different.

[Pete Jones]

You're right Nic, no debate because it doesn't add any value.

In reality Scrum is nothing more than a process, it's a lean one and like many other agile frameworks it is a good one, however, I get frustrated by those who say there is no process.

Also, this thread was about getting to know JIRA and was not offered as a scrum soap box.  

The smart money is on starting with a framework and evolving and that's exactly what I am trying to do. My challenge is to evolve our JIRA implementation to better meet our business needs.

Have a nice weekend

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Ask the admins of the current system for the "developer licence".  That will save you having to use a trial licence that will expire.

[Pete Jones]

Thanks for your input, I will they to find the admin next week