From Zero to Jira Hero: Everything You Need to Run Your Jira Projects

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Jira is one of the most widely used project management tools for agile teams. Here is everything you need to get from first login to sprint reporting.

Creating Your Account and First Project

Jira is free for teams of one to ten users. Once you are in, create a new project, select Software Development and choose the Scrum template. For most users, Team Managed is the right choice as it keeps your project self-contained. Company Managed is worth knowing about if you have multiple projects that need central administration by Jira admins.

Give your project a name and Jira will generate a short key that appears on every card.

Setting Up Your Epics

Your two main workspaces are the Backlog and the Board. Start in the Backlog.
Open the Epic panel by pressing E or clicking the option in the panel. Epics are your high-level features. Click Create Epic to add one and assign each a different color so you can track which work belongs where as the board fills up.

Building Your Backlog

With epics in place, start adding user stories by clicking Create. Each card can be typed as a story, bug or other work type. Custom types like risks or spikes are available through Manage Types.

Click any card to open its details. From there you can assign it to an epic, set its status, assign it to a team member and add story point estimates. Add a description to capture acceptance criteria and any supporting information.

Creating and Starting a Sprint

Click Create Sprint, set the duration and select a start date. Jira calculates the end date automatically. Add a sprint goal to give the team a clear focus.

Move cards into the sprint by dragging them from the backlog or right-clicking and selecting the target sprint. Keep an eye on story point totals and match them to your team’s velocity. When ready, click Start Sprint and your cards move onto the board.

Working the Board

The board displays your active sprint in columns. Add new columns by clicking the plus symbol on the right and dragging them into position. Custom filters through Manage Custom Filters use JQL (Jira Query Language) to adjust the board view. A simple filter showing only cards assigned to the current user is a good starting point.

Completing a Sprint and Reading Reports

At the end of the sprint, click Complete Sprint. Unfinished cards roll over automatically. Review your backlog, confirm priorities with the product owner and start the next sprint when the team is ready.

After two or three sprints, navigate to Reports to start tracking performance. The Velocity Report shows story points committed versus completed across recent sprints, giving you a reliable average to plan against. The Sprint Burndown Chart tracks work coming down over the course of a sprint against the ideal trend line, making it easy to spot if the team is falling behind mid-sprint.

Using the Timeline as a Roadmap

The Timeline view shows your epics and user stories laid out across time, similar to a Gantt chart. Drag items to adjust dates and use this view to communicate progress and upcoming features to stakeholders. It is one of the clearest ways to show where the product is heading and when things will be delivered.

Set up your epics, build your backlog, match your work to your velocity and use the reports to keep improving. It is a straightforward tool once you know where everything lives.

– David McLachlan

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Everything You Need to Know from the Google Project Management Certificate

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More than two million people have enrolled in the Google Project Management Certificate. It covers six courses, 27 modules and takes most people over 240 hours to complete. Here is the entire program distilled into a single read.

The Foundations

A project is a unique, temporary endeavor with a start and end date, designed to deliver value. That sounds simple enough until you are six months in, the scope has doubled and nobody can agree on what done looks like. Project management exists to prevent exactly that.

Core responsibilities include gathering requirements, developing a plan, tracking progress, communicating milestones and managing the budget. Career paths run from junior project manager through to program and portfolio manager. In agile environments, the scrum master and product owner are the key roles to understand.

Two broad methodologies dominate the field. Waterfall follows a sequential order of phases and works best when scope is clearly defined. Agile delivers in short iterations of one to four weeks, gathers real customer feedback after each and adjusts course. Lean Six Sigma rounds things out with a focus on reducing defects and waste through DMAIC: define, measure, analyze, improve and control.

Initiating a Project

Every project starts with a problem or an opportunity. Before anything else, a cost-benefit analysis confirms it is actually worth solving. Goals should be SMART: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timebound. The difference between “improve customer experience” and “reduce checkout time by 10% within six weeks” is the difference between a project that drifts and one that delivers.

The project charter formalizes the goals, scope and resources and gives the project manager authority to proceed once the sponsor signs off. Without it, you are running on goodwill.

Planning

Good planning is not bureaucracy. It is what separates projects that succeed from ones that quietly fall apart. Build a work breakdown structure, map milestones to a Gantt chart, assign resources and involve the team in estimating durations. They know their work better than anyone.

Build in buffers, identify risks early and rate each one by multiplying probability by impact. Plan a response for the ones that matter most. A communication plan that defines what gets shared, with whom and how often is not optional: some practitioners argue communication is 90% of the job.

Executing and Closing

Execution is where plans meet reality. Track everything: tasks, milestones, costs, scope changes and risks. A weekly status report with a red, amber or green indicator keeps stakeholders informed without overwhelming them. Hold retrospectives regularly to surface what is working and fix what is not before it compounds.

When closing, get formal sign-off, archive documentation and produce two things: a project closeout report (planned versus actual) and a project impact report showing the real value delivered. Executives respond to metrics and visuals. Give them both.

Agile and Scrum

Agile was formalized in 2001 and scrum is now used by 72% of agile teams. The product owner prioritizes the backlog, the scrum master removes blockers and the team decides how the work gets done. Keep user stories small, match sprint capacity to velocity and use retrospectives to keep improving. When agile works well, it really works.

Project management is one of the most transferable skills in any industry. This is the foundation.

The Scrum Guide: Everything You Need to Know

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More than 87% of people working in agile use scrum or some part of it. Yet many teams do not fully understand where it came from or how it was intended to work. The Scrum Guide, written by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland and last updated in 2020, is the authoritative source. It is free at scrumguides.org. Here is the whole thing explained plainly.

What Is Scrum?

Scrum is a lightweight framework for solving complex problems and delivering value through adaptive solutions. It works best when you cannot know everything upfront. Rather than planning in detail for a future you cannot predict, you deliver something real, get genuine feedback and adjust. That is the core logic.

The Scrum Team

A scrum team has three roles: developers, a product owner and a scrum master. No sub-teams, no hierarchies. Ten people or fewer.

Developers deliver a usable increment every sprint. They create the sprint plan, maintain quality and hold each other accountable. The term applies to anyone doing the work, not just software engineers.

The product owner manages the product backlog: defining the product goal, ordering backlog items by priority and keeping everything visible to the whole team. One person, not a committee. Others can suggest changes but only by convincing the product owner. When organizations trust this role and give it room to operate, decisions get made faster and the product improves faster.

The scrum master is a coach who also clears the path. They help the team stay self-managing, remove blockers, escalate issues and keep events productive. They serve the team, the product owner and the broader organization.

The Artifacts

The product backlog is the single source of work for the team: an ordered list of everything needed to meet the product goal. One product goal at a time.

The sprint backlog is the set of items selected for the sprint plus the developers’ plan for delivering them. Its commitment is the sprint goal: one clear objective that keeps the team focused.

The increment is the real, usable piece of value delivered at the end of a sprint. It must meet the definition of done before it can be released. If it does not, it goes back to the backlog.

The Events

The sprint is the container for everything else. One to four weeks, fixed length. The sprint goal must not change mid-sprint. Only the product owner can cancel a sprint, and only if the goal has become obsolete.

Sprint planning kicks off the sprint (timeboxed to eight hours for a one-month sprint). The team answers three questions: why is this sprint valuable, what can be done and how will the work get done?

The daily scrum is 15 minutes, same time and place each day, for developers only. Inspect progress toward the sprint goal and adapt the plan for the next 24 hours.

The sprint review (timeboxed to four hours) is where the team presents the real increment to stakeholders. Not a recording, not a mockup. The real thing. Together they discuss what was learned and what comes next.

The sprint retrospective (timeboxed to three hours) closes the sprint. What went well, what did not and what will improve next time. The most impactful changes are acted on immediately.

Theory and Values

Scrum runs on three pillars: transparency (make the work visible), inspection (regularly examine progress) and adaptation (adjust quickly when something is off track). The longer you wait to course-correct, the harder it gets.

The five scrum values tie it together: commitment, focus, openness, respect and courage. When a team genuinely lives these, trust builds and scrum works.

Scrum is simple by design. The challenge is not understanding it. It is applying it honestly and giving the team the trust and space to do the work.

– David McLachlan

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Something VERY STRANGE Happened When I Passed The PMP

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Something unexpected happens when you pass the PMP exam. It is not just a credential. It changes how you see the work you have been doing all along.

After months of study, working through the Project Management Body of Knowledge and grinding through practice questions, I did pass the exam but the real shift was what happened afterwards.

The best way to describe it is a scene from the 1999 film The Matrix. The main character discovers he has been living in a simulation and, by the end, gains the ability to see through the surface of everyday reality into the underlying structure of everything around him.

Or think of the moment in The Wizard of Oz when the curtain is pulled back and the machinery behind the illusion is finally visible. That is what the PMP does. Before passing, project work often felt like fumbling forward. Sometimes things worked. Sometimes they did not. There was no reliable framework to explain why.

After passing, the reasons became clear.

Looking back at old projects that had not gone well, I could now see the reasons why. On one project in particular, the deliverables were being met and the project was technically doing what it was supposed to do, but  the right stakeholders had not been identified. Senior executives with real influence over the project outcome were not being engaged, when they should have been engaged by me. The project eventually succeeded, but the personal outcome was a failure because stakeholder identification and engagement had not been handled properly.

That was hard to accept. But it meant the next project could go differently, if I applied my mistakes and the lessons I learned.

The same applied to other fundamentals: understanding why a project stalls without proper sponsor support, why resources and authority dry up when that relationship is not managed, why scope needs to be visible and accepted by the customer before work begins, and why a clear change control process matters whether you are working as a product owner on an agile team or managing a predictive waterfall project.

The PMBOK is like a lens. Once you have it, you cannot unsee what it shows you about how projects actually work and why they succeed or fail.

If you are still studying, do not rush past the material to get to the pass. Work through all of it. The process on a page from the PMBOK Guide Sixth Edition (or 8th Edition now) is one of the clearest distillations of project management thinking available. It will change over time, but the underlying logic it represents is worth understanding thoroughly.

– David McLachlan

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Five Free Videos to Pass Your PMP Exam on the First Try

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Hundreds of thousands of people have used these five free videos to pass the PMP exam on their first try. They come up repeatedly in congratulations posts and resource lists shared by people who have already made it through. Here they are in one place.

1. 150 PMBOK 7 Questions and Answers

This video works through the PMBOK Guide Seventh Edition from start to finish using scenario-based questions in the same format you will encounter on the exam. Each question typically has two answers that both appear plausible, which mirrors the real exam experience closely. With more than a million views, the comments section is filled almost entirely with people sharing that they used it to pass.

2. PMP Fast Track

This one is built from more than a thousand PMI practice questions and distils a set of shortcuts you can default to when answering exam questions. Think of it as a cheat sheet for decision-making under pressure. If you are stuck on a question during the exam, this video gives you a reliable method for working through it. It consistently appears in the resources people credit when they share their results.

3. PMP Cheat Sheet

This video covers the exam content outline across the three domains: project management process, people and business environment. It runs for under 20 minutes and is designed to show you exactly what the exam tests and whether you have any gaps in your knowledge. It is one of the most efficient ways to check your readiness before sitting the exam.

4. 200 Agile Questions and Answers

This returns to the scenario-based question format with a focus on agile content, which makes up a significant portion of the current PMP exam. The questions follow the same style as the real exam and give you targeted practice in the agile domain.

5. 100 PMBOK 6 Questions and Answers

The PMBOK Sixth Edition is now known as the Process Groups Practice Guide and it remains highly relevant to the PMP exam. The core project management process has not changed significantly across editions. You will still be tested on initiating, planning, executing, controlling and closing a project or phase, and on managing scope, schedule and cost throughout. This video has been viewed more than a million times and the comments reflect how consistently it helps people pass.

If you finish all five videos and don’t want to lose study momentum, here are two bonus videos:

Bonus 1: Six Mistakes to Avoid on the PMP Exam

Bonus 2: 110 Drag and Drop Questions (Perfect Study Review)

63 project Management Tools for your PMP Exam

If you make it through all seven, you are doing more than most people ever will. Keep going, I know you will pass your PMP!

– David McLachlan

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10 PMP and CAPM Questions to Ace Your Exam (61 to 70)

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Question 61 – Risk of Missing Deadline

The project is behind schedule and over budget, with no extra funds available. What should be done to avoid missing the deadline?

Question 62 – How to Estimate?

During the planning phase, stakeholders require highly accurate cost and schedule estimates. Which estimation method should be used?

Question 63 – Finding the Root Cause

The team is experiencing recurring delays, and members disagree on the cause. What technique should be used to determine the root issue?

Question 64 – Delays in Lessons Learned

During the closing phase, delays were experienced, but the root cause is unknown. How can the team ensure these issues are prevented in future projects?

Question 65 – Resolving Conflict Between Team Members

Two team members have conflicting opinions on how to complete a critical task, one preferring a traditional approach and the other an innovative one. How should the conflict be managed?

Question 66 – Communication Channels

You need to determine the number of communication channels for an eight-member team using the formula: n(n-1)/2.

Question 67 – Not Receiving the Right Information

Stakeholders are frustrated due to communication gaps. You must decide the best approach to improve communication effectiveness.

Question 68 – Brainstorming Risks

Your team is developing a risk register and needs to assess internal and external factors that could influence the project’s success.

Question 69 – How Risks Affect Project Timeline

You need to analyze how uncertainties impact the project’s schedule and costs by visualizing possible outcomes and their likelihood.

Question 70 – Enough Resources to Address Risk

Weather delays may threaten the budget and timeline, and you must determine whether contingency reserves are sufficient to address the risks.

Pep Talk

What is a wonderful thing is that you’ve gotten through these 10 questions. You’ve done such an amazing job, and studying and practicing is how you get to your goals and how you improve yourself and get a skill set that is extremely valuable in the marketplace. Project managers are needed everywhere to deliver change and to deliver value that’s necessary for companies to grow. You are doing the right thing. I believe in you. Keep
going!

– David McLachlan on LinkedIn

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10 PMP and CAPM Questions to Ace Your Exam (51 to 60)

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Question 51 – System Interactions

Stakeholders request a visual representation of how a new system will interact with existing systems. What tool should you use?

Question 52 – Project Charter Contents

The sponsor wants to reduce rework by using information from the project charter. What key details will not be found there?

Question 53 – Next Step After WBS

Your team has created a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) and defined work packages. What should you do next in the planning process?

Question 54 – Scope Baseline Completion

The scope baseline is nearly complete with the scope statement and WBS finalized. What is the next step?

Question 55 – Managing Scope Creep

The project is receiving many small change requests, raising concerns about scope creep. How should you handle this situation?

Question 56 – How to Logically Schedule Activities

How should project activities be scheduled logically? Consider dependencies like finish-to-start relationships and methods such as the Precedence Diagramming Method (PDM).

Question 57 – Ensure it meets industry standards

How can you ensure your product outperforms competitors and meets industry standards? Options include benchmarking, root cause analysis, and risk assessment.

Question 58 – Ready to Close – What NOT to do?

What action is NOT required when closing a project? Tasks include documenting lessons learned, preparing final reports, and releasing personnel, but some activities belong to earlier phases.

Question 59 – Whether to use a Vendor or not
A critical system functionality is needed, but there are budget and timeline constraints. What’s the best approach—hiring internally, root cause analysis, scope reduction, or a make-or-buy analysis?

Question 60 – Lots of conflicting stakeholders

During project initiation, numerous stakeholders have conflicting priorities. How should you manage and prioritize them? Options include stakeholder mapping, selective engagement, workshops, or escalation.

Pep Talk

A wonderful tool for your study is to practice every single day, in the way that you have been doing. So I think you’re doing a fantastic job! Keep going, keep learning, keep growing, and all of these things we can take and use on our real world projects straight away. Some of these are extremely handy tools to have in our back pocket as project managers. You’ll be able to take these tools and use them any time you need by learning these things, learning the right things and doing great things as a project manager. Keep going, I believe in you!

– David McLachlan on LinkedIn

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10 PMP and CAPM Questions to Ace Your Exam (41 to 50)

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Question 41 – Unhappy Stakeholders

How do you handle disengaged and vocal stakeholders causing project delays?

Question 42 – Approvals with a Dispersed Team

How do you efficiently obtain approvals from global stakeholders in different time zones?

Question 43 – Constant New Requests

How should you handle persistent feature requests after scope has been finalized?

Question 44 – Vendor Delays

What’s the best way to address delays from a critical subcontractor without extending the deadline?

Question 45 – Expert Can’t Articulate Needs

How do you gather clear requirements from a user struggling to communicate their needs?

Question 46 – Stakeholder Dominating Decision-Making

A senior stakeholder dominates a critical project decision, making team members hesitant to voice opinions. How should the project manager ensure all voices are heard?

Question 47 – Team Can’t Understand System Design

The project team struggles to understand the proposed system design and features. What should be done to improve comprehension and alignment?

Question 48 – Major Industry Change Affecting Prioritization

A major change in the industry leads to disputes over which product features should be prioritized for release. How should prioritization be determined?

Question 49 – Scheduling Issues in Construction Project

Inefficiencies in task scheduling have led to delays, particularly with materials arriving too early or too late. How should the scheduling issues be resolved?

Question 50 –Resource Constraints and Overallocated Team Member

A team member is assigned to multiple tasks at the same time, potentially causing project delays. What resource management technique should be applied?

Pep Talk

What is fantastic is your ability to study this every single day to grow to improve, to get better and not only get better but get better at something which is so important, and that is delivering value and managing projects and doing these wonderful things that will help  people in the real world by delivering this value. It’s so valuable! Keep going, I think you’re doing a fantastic job.

– David McLachlan on LinkedIn

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10 PMP and CAPM Questions to Ace Your Exam (31 to 40)

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Question 31 – Material Change in Construction Project

A supplier offers a cheaper, suitable material midway through the project. How should you handle this opportunity while ensuring proper approval?

Question 32 – New Logistics Partner Integration

A client adopts a new logistics partner requiring major system changes. What steps should you take to manage this impact effectively?

Question 33 – Stakeholder Unhappy with Approved Change

A key stakeholder is dissatisfied with a change that has already been approved and implemented. How do you address their concerns?

Question 34 – Resource Inefficiencies in High-Priority Project

Some team members are overloaded while others are underutilized, leading to inefficiencies. What’s the best way to optimize resources?

Question 35 – Pressure to Begin Work Without a Plan

A new initiative is suggested but lacks formal analysis, and stakeholders are pressuring you to start. What is the first step to properly initiate the project?

Question 36 – Benefits Management Plan

What does a benefits management plan include, and what is its primary purpose?

Question 37 – Organizational Structure

In which type of organizational structure does the project manager have significant authority over project resources, including budget and scheduling decisions?

Question 38 – Project Approach

What is the best project management approach for an initiative with a fixed timeline, well-defined requirements, and minimal scope changes?

Question 39 – Gathering Expert Insights

What is the most efficient way to quickly gather insights from multiple subject matter experts (SMEs) on key project features?

Question 40 – Leadership and Team Morale
What is the best leadership approach to rebuild team morale and encourage open communication after taking over a project from a manager who lacked transparency and support?

Pep Talk

You’ve done an amazing job! Studying towards your PMP or your CAPM is the most worthy thing you can do this year you’re doing  an amazing thing and just by studying every single day I know you’ll have success towards your goal. You’re doing the right thing – by studying, by improving, learning and growing. Keep going!

David McLachlan on LinkedIn

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Explained: What Does a Business Analyst Do?

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What is Business Analysis and What Does a Business Analyst Do?

In the world of project management, you may have heard of a business analyst (BA). Whether you’re preparing for a certification exam like the Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM) or working with a business analyst, it’s important to understand what they do. In this article, we will explain what business analysis is, what a business analyst’s role involves, and how they help make projects successful.

Who is a Business Analyst?

Here is a simple way to explain a business analyst’s role. There are three main tasks that define business analysis:

  • Gathering Requirements: A business analyst works with stakeholders and customers to collect their needs.
  • Ensuring the Solution Matches: Once the requirements are gathered, the BA ensures that the solution meets these needs.
  • Evaluating the Outcome: After the solution is delivered, the BA checks if the desired results—like increased revenue or better customer satisfaction—were achieved.

This basic explanation gives a clear idea of the BA’s job in a project.

The Role of a Business Analyst in a Project

In a typical project, there are several stages: initiation, planning, execution, monitoring and controlling, and closing. A business analyst focuses on three key areas throughout the project:

  • Stakeholder Management: The BA identifies and works with stakeholders to gather and refine project requirements.
  • Scope Definition: The BA helps define the project’s scope, ensuring the right requirements are included.
  • Quality Assurance: The BA ensures that the solution matches the defined requirements and meets quality standards.

These three areas—stakeholders, scope, and quality—are vital for a business analyst’s success and contribute to the overall project success.

How Business Analysis Works in Practice

1. Engaging Stakeholders and Gathering Requirements

The business analyst’s first task is to identify and engage the right stakeholders—customers, users, and anyone affected by the project. To do this, the BA uses tools like an organizational breakdown chart to identify key people within the organization. Once the right stakeholders are identified, their roles are documented in a stakeholder register.

The BA uses a stakeholder classification matrix to assess the influence and impact of each stakeholder, focusing on those who have the greatest influence on the project’s outcome. Engaging the right people early ensures that the gathered requirements are accurate.

2. Eliciting and Visualizing Requirements

Once stakeholders are engaged, the BA uses various techniques like workshops, brainstorming, and facilitation skills to gather requirements. One effective method is the Nominal Group Technique, where everyone writes down their ideas anonymously, avoiding bias from higher-ups in the room.

After gathering the requirements, the BA visualizes them to ensure they are clear and understandable. Techniques such as process mapping, SE diagrams, and context diagrams help the BA create visual representations of how the system works or will work in the future. These diagrams make it easier for everyone to understand the requirements.

3. Ensuring the Solution Matches Requirements

After gathering and visualizing requirements, the BA works with developers and the project team to make sure the solution aligns with the requirements. To do this, the BA uses a Requirements Traceability Matrix, which ensures that all requirements are covered and tested.

The BA also helps break down the project into smaller tasks using a work breakdown structure (WBS). This helps the team manage the work more easily. The BA ensures that acceptance criteria are clearly defined, so the project team knows what is required for each task to be considered complete.

4. Evaluating the Success of the Solution

Once the solution is delivered, the BA checks if it achieved the desired results. Did it improve customer satisfaction? Did it increase revenue or reduce costs? The BA may use tools like Net Promoter Score (NPS) or customer satisfaction surveys to measure the impact.

Additionally, the BA may conduct a retrospective meeting with the project team to review what went well and what could be improved for future projects.

Tools and Techniques a Business Analyst Uses

Business analysts rely on various tools to do their job effectively. Here are some of the most common ones:

  • Stakeholder Register and Stakeholder Classification Matrix: To identify and assess stakeholders.
  • Workshops, Brainstorming, and Nominal Group Technique: To gather requirements.
  • Process Mapping, Sequence Diagrams, and Context Diagrams: To visualize systems and processes.
  • Requirements Traceability Matrix: To ensure requirements are met.
  • Work Breakdown Structure (WBS): To break down tasks into manageable pieces.
  • Acceptance Criteria: To define when a task is complete.

These tools help the business analyst manage requirements, scope, and quality throughout the project.

The Key Skill of a Business Analyst: Drawing Out Answers

A business analyst’s key skill is the ability to draw out answers. The BA doesn’t need all the answers at the start of the project. Instead, they must be good at asking the right questions and engaging the right people to uncover the information needed. This skill is essential for steering a project in the right direction.

Conclusion

A business analyst plays an important role in project management. They gather and clarify requirements, make sure the solution matches those needs, and evaluate the results to ensure success. By focusing on stakeholders, scope, and quality, business analysts help guide projects to successful outcomes.

With the right tools and techniques, a business analyst can keep the project on track and make sure it delivers value. Whether you’re preparing for a certification exam or working with a business analyst, understanding their role will help you achieve better project outcomes.

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