Why you shouldn’t DIY Atlassian maintenance
Michael Dockery
Atlassian Solution Partner Enterprise | Enterprise Software Platform Integration | Software Configuration & Support
Why you shouldn’t DIY Atlassian maintenance (and what to do instead)
Handing responsibility for your Atlassian tool maintenance and admin over to your jack-of-all-trades IT person or the most experienced Atlassian user in your organisation is certainly appealing – you’ve got a in-house resource and can be cost-effective. However, taking the DIY route for?Atlassian maintenance and support?isn’t always the simple solution. To help you make an informed decision about how you maintain your Atlassian toolkit both daily and in the event of major changes, we’ve outlined the pros and cons of the DIY approach and offered some options.
The pros of in-house or DIY Atlassian maintenance and support
Having someone in-house who can maintain your Atlassian environment and provide support to users is an attractive option that provides your team with:
However, the success of these ‘pros’ relies on employing (or already having) someone with a high level of Atlassian experience and certifications. If you have a company dependent on Atlassian tools for several functions, this might be an option.?For small to medium-sized businesses who want to keep their support and administration in-house by combining these tasks with another role, this option comes with the pitfalls listed below.
The cons of in-house or DIY Atlassian maintenance and support
Yes, we’re biased in favour of having a managed services agreement with a credentialled Atlassian Solution Provider. But, that’s because we hear the following story on a regular basis: “We’ve done some of the basic admin ourselves, and have a guy in-house who did the more complex maintenance tasks. But we realised we needed an expert so brought in a consultant who jumped in and re-configured things but the tools still aren’t working well. It’s evolved a lot since we started and now we have something that looks like a plate of spaghetti.”
Unfortunately, confusion and inefficiency aren’t the only downsides of taking a DIY and/or ad hoc approach to your Atlassian maintenance:
It actually costs you more in downtime and money
In a digital age, keeping your budget balanced and profits up is contingent on the smooth running of your tech stack.?If you’ve chosen to delegate Atlassian administration to a single IT person or decentralise it to a team level, it will probably land at the bottom of a long list of tasks. This can cause unexpected and costly periods of downtime when:
It’s also worth noting that inexperienced administrators may not be strict enough with tool governance around access. Giving people licenses they don’t need, allowing them too much access or failing to offboard people who are no longer with the company can add hundreds, if not thousands, to your license costs.
It can prevent your team from working productively and securely
Having Atlassian tools alone doesn’t necessarily ensure a high level of productivity: users need training, and the environment needs to be set up, governed and maintained correctly, all of which require the guidance of Atlassian experts. Leaving these to non-credentialled IT staff, or even team leaders who have used Atlassian tools before, can lead to:
At best, you might end up using an older version that doesn’t work as well and doesn’t have the latest feature sets. At worst, using your Atlassian tools will become cumbersome, and you’ll end up throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater and looking for other platforms.
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You’ll miss out on opportunities for continual improvement?
The beauty of Atlassian’s tools is that they are highly customisable and able to keep changing as your business grows. That said, continual improvement requires up-to-date industry knowledge and training on how best to improve the platform. Without a dedicated person (or team) with the knowledge and motivation to make it happen, you won’t have someone to drive a continual improvement plan forward.
Furthermore, when large changes are made to the environment, without an expert or centralised team heading up the project, it’s unlikely that a proper change management and consultation process is adhered to. This means that end-users could be adversely affected by the changes.
The best outcomes from using Atlassian tools come from having a dedicated team to look after them, who understand the options when you want to change, upgrade or add something. Experts also have a wider view of the possibilities as they see Atlassian as a total platform that works together, rather than separate tools.
What to do instead
Firstly, you’ll need to change your mindset around the cost of Atlassian maintenance, support and administration. It should be seen as an investment that will deliver a positive ROI, rather than an expense.
Secondly, you’re already paying for the maintenance – even if it’s hidden within the salaries of people you’ve delegated these tasks to – so decide?where?you’ll get a better return on the money you spend.
The key to this decision is understanding the value that bringing in Atlassian experts can deliver via the time they give back to your staff and the know-how they can deploy to improve how you operate drastically. For example, you might be paying $100k in hours on existing staff to do training, administration (off-boarding, onboarding, archiving), answering questions and doing basic updates or patches. However, with their workload, you’re only getting a 5% improvement in productivity for your team overall. By reallocating that money, you’ll probably receive fewer hours of support from an Atlassian Solutions Partner, but in that time, they’ll be able to configure, maintain and support your Atlassian environment in such a way that you see a 20% improvement in productivity.
With that in mind, the best choices for resourcing the maintenance, administration and support of your Atlassian environment are:
YouTube tutorials and a couple of hours of training aren’t a substitute for an expert with years of industry experience.?Asking non-experts to perform Atlassian maintenance and support is a poor use of your own internal resources: let them do what they’re good at and what you are really paying them for as it will be far more cost-efficient in the long run.
DI can tailor a?managed services?or?ad-hoc support?package to your needs and budget. Get in touch with the team to see how we can make your Atlassian platform a productivity powerhouse.
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