Hiring Jira Experts?

6 interview questions to ask a candidate

Jira experts are hard to find. It’s worth the time and effort it takes to vet them when you consider just how useful a Jira project administrator can be. Project management is much easier with powerful software tools like the ones created by Atlassian.
 

If your agile team is seeking a Jira expert, you will need to have some well-tested interview questions prepared.
 
Use these 6 interview questions for hiring Jira experts as a guide as you begin your search for a talented Jira professional:
 
1. Can you explain Jira in your own words?
Jira is a digital project management and issue tracking software tool. Jira is one of the leading project management tools commercially available, in part due to its comprehensiveness, flexibility, and customizability.
 
Jira uses the agile approach. The agile project management methodology focuses on delivering working software consistently, responding to change, and assessing project progress in cycles. As such, Jira comes built in with agile, scrum, and Kanban project tools. These tools help teams stay on track as well as visualize project progress.
 
2. Which kinds of projects are best for Jira?
Jira is versatile and can be used for any project in any department. Jira allows users to track progress through tasks, use cases, and bug tracking.
 
Issue tracking can be monitored with precision, showing the history of completed issues, who is working on issues now, and when they are expected to be completed. Jira’s features are useful for any department from IT to marketing.
 
That being said, Jira has the agile project management framework in its DNA. Agile was created with software development teams in mind. As such, Jira is best for important software projects led by companies that have adopted the agile approach.
 
3. What are the useful reporting tools in Jira?
Jira allows reporting on almost every metric. Activity streams, filter results, and issues in progress can all be generated into useful reports. Below are the major Jira report types that Jira experts should be familiar with are listed. In addition to these types, Jira allows for reporting gadgets and add-ons.
 
Standard reporting tools

 
Agile reporting tools

 
4. Can you explain the Jira workflow?
The Jira workflow is how we plan, understand, and track the stages of the project and task lifecycle. The workflow begins with an issue, bug, or task being created and assigned. When an employee starts working on a task it is said to be a “work in progress.”
 
The task, issue, or bug can then be seen on the team board as being assigned. Then, after the task is completed, it’s marked as done, closed and logged into the project history for later review.
 
5. What is Kanban in Jira and when is it useful?
Jira lets users create scrum boards as well as Kanban boards. Kanban boards are a visualization of tasks. Tasks are organized depending on their status (e.g. open, in progress, completed, closed). The board’s primary goal is to help optimize the team workflow.
 
6. Starting at project categories and ending at subtasks, can you list the four levels of Jira projects?
Project categories are the overall themes of projects. The second level is comprised of the projects themselves. Underneath the project level, we have components of the projects and versions of the project (if they have been produced).
 
On the third level, there are issues, which are divided up into types of issues. These issue types are further segmented into subtasks, the fourth and final level, in which complicated issues are broken down into smaller tasks.
 
Conclusion
Jira is packed with features. It’s a comprehensive project management software package with an incredible pool of third-party tools you can dip into as well. Assessing expertise with Jira can, therefore, be quite a long process. With these 6 questions, however, you should be able to ascertain whether or not a candidate is familiar with Jira.
 
Ask the candidate to explain Jira in their own words and to detail how, when, and why Jira is useful for agile organizations. Then, dive into some questions about Jira’s features, such as reporting tools, workflows, and Kanban boards.
 
Continue measuring their expertise with another question about project hierarchy. An ideal candidate will be able to list every level and detail how that level functions with ease. 

 Author Bio

Michael Volkmann is an entrepreneur with a focus on business operations and finance. He has worked with many small businesses helping them with their M&A for over 6 years.  Follow @mikevolkmann