On my visit to San Francisco, I had the privilege of meeting Matt Doar who is well regarded in the Atlassian circle.
I remember many times when Googling for specific problems on JIRA or Confluence, Matt Doar’s name would constantly appear so having the opportunity to meet him, chief toolsmith, author and Atlassian JIRA extraordinaire, was a wonderful experience.
Matt has a wealth of knowledge and I tried to absorb as much as I could in the 60 minutes that flew by like the wind in the night. We talked about what being an author is like, how he got into working with JIRA and the benefits of the Atlassian toolset amongst other things.
Matt is the author of numerous O’Reilly books on JIRA and I was surprised to discover that it’s not as glamourous as one would think. Unless you’re a John Grisham or J.K. Rowling, you’re not going to retire on some island in the Mediterranean anytime soon. The benefits though are more in the lines of credibility and becoming a subject matter expert (SME) in the industry.
As we walked around the LinkedIn campus on yet another cloudless blue skied sunny day in
Palo Alto, it was like a (not so) young grasshopper learning from a master.
I first came across JIRA and Confluence in 2008 and have been a user ever since. I’ve been a trainer in JIRA and Confluence since 2012 for Atlassian and ServiceRocket and I’ve been an admin for JIRA, Confluence, Bitbucket and Bamboo for a number of years. So with my experience I’m no mug, but I don’t eat, sleep and breath this stuff. Matt does so he’s on a whole other level.
Matt got into JIRA when many a moons ago, when he didn’t like the toolset he was using so his manager asked him to do something about it. Of course there are other toolsets around, but JIRA and Confluence are just so easy to use, easy to get started on and the community is wonderful.
Other tools such as RPM, Bugzilla or Sharepoint are fine but once you get a taste of JIRA and Confluence, you won’t look back.
My only one regret is that I didn’t bring my selfie stick to take a picture with Matt on that cloudless blue skied sunny day. But then again it’s not second nature as this grasshopper was not born in the selfie generation. Maybe next time!