Ask HN: How to Avoid Writing in Jira?

3 points by utkarsh_apoorva 4 years ago | 8 comments
Hi HN,

I am an engineer turned PM.

My engineering leads will not switch to other softwares (LinearApp / Clubhouse).

I do not mind watching the progress in JIRA, but writing user stories in JIRA is a serious problem.

Here’s why: All of my thinking happens in documents. Putting ideas in JIRA can take hours, and it transports me to a non-creative world with grunt, data entry work. I do it. But it is expensive in terms of time, and attention sunk.

Is there a way to convert document paragraphs / sentences in documents to user stories in JIRA?

I may write a script to do this and put it up on Github, but I am wondering if a solution already exists. It must, it's a pretty common problem with most PMs in my network.

  • jimmyvalmer 4 years ago
    First, I'm sorry you've been relegated to PM. Jira (and PMing, generally) is valuable insofar as it's created jobs. But it's like the five highway workers standing around the hole: one person to dig, and the other four to watch.

    To not answer your question, I don't understand your question. To me, a "user story" is the same as a document, just a bunch of prose no one will read.

    • utkarsh_apoorva 4 years ago
      You can replace "user story" with tickets, issues, or tasks - anything that goes into Jira as a part of the sprint plan.

      Thankfully, most engineers I know read, edit and mark those items as done in a project / sprint management tool.

    • lwrm 4 years ago
      You didn't mention what you are using for documents creation. Pandoc has support for Jira Wiki markup, and supports a lot of different input formats.
      • utkarsh_apoorva 4 years ago
        Usually Google Docs. Lately Notion.

        Jira Wiki markup seems like a viable solution, even if it has a bit of learning curve.

        • lwrm 4 years ago
          You could use Google Docs, save it as ODT or some other format, and then convert it to Jira markup, (hopefully) preserving formatting. It sounds manual, but I am sure there are ways to automate it.
          • utkarsh_apoorva 4 years ago
            Interesting idea. Will try to do this. If I can automate it, probably that's it.
      • Akcium 4 years ago
        I just leave a comment here saying that I hate JIRA :)

        (Hopefully this comment will up your question and help a bit)

        • utkarsh_apoorva 4 years ago
          Haha. Thanks for the help. Shared hatred is revolutionary.