Learn how JIRA is being used outside of the traditional software development domain. See how BAE builds, delivers, and supports billion dollar ships for the Australian Defense Force, all while saving millions in operational costs in the first year alone. Greg will also discuss the migration of more that 475,000 pieces of metadata using the REST API.

1. #atlassian

2. Building and Supporting Billion Dollar
Ships with JIRA
Greg Warner • Team Leader • BAE Systems • @sabre1817

3. A little about BAE Systems
• BAE Systems is a global defence, aerospace and security
company
• 80,000 employees worldwide
• Customers in more than 100 countries
• 2013 sales of £18.2 billion

4. A little about me
• Team leader responsible for systems and software engineering tools at BAE Systems
in Australia.
• 7 years experience with Atlassian software.
• Experience with 100s of hardware and software projects.
• Atlassian software is used across all of our business. (Aerospace, Land & Integrated
Systems, Maritime).

5. Landing Helicopter Dock
• Largest ships ever built for the Australian Navy.
• Helicopters, troops, landing craft, hospital.
• Assembled in Melbourne, Australia.

7. Big cool statistic
2,569
Add-Ons in Marketplace

8. How many tasks?
16,100 (Ship 1)
4,900 (Ship 2)

9. 250
systems

10. 1180
compartments

11. mysql> select jira_key,
-> compartment_2,569
Big desc cool statistic
from compartment
-> where compartment_desc like
-> 'beer%';
+----------+------------------+
| jira_key | compartment_desc |
+----------+------------------+
| LIW-931 Add-| Ons BEER in STOREROOM Marketplace
|
+----------+------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

12. The Problem
• Tasks and defects initially tracked in a spreadsheet.
• 6400 rows, 78 columns wide.
• Growing at 250 rows per day.

13. 476,000
attributes

14. Solution Requirements
• Provide a collaborative multi-user system.
• Import existing data from multiple spreadsheets.
• Automate common appropriate tasks.
• Configure not customize.
• 4 weeks to deliver the solution with 0 import defects.

15. Why JIRA?
• My team is familiar with JIRA.
• Comfortable that there was an 80% requirement fit.
• Could JIRA perform in this use case?
• Can we deliver in this time frame?

16. Why JIRA?
• Can we meet the reporting requirements?
• Is automation possible?
• Can we retrieve data from other enterprise systems?
• What about through life support for each ship?

17. But a ship isn’t software?
• Apply software development concepts.
• Identify workflows.
• Identify key issue fields.
• Build custom reports.
• Extended JIRA using add-ons.

18. How did you do it? - Workflows
• Have your customers sketch out their day.
• Translate their sketch to a JIRA workflow.
• Collaborate on the workflow.
• Some steps were “excel” steps. Remove them!

19. Landing Helicopter Dock

20. 2,569
Big cool statistic
Insert workflow screenshot from JIRA
Add-Ons in Marketplace

21. How did you do it? – Custom Fields
• Identify the fields that matter.
• Don’t blindly import all fields from excel.
• Perform a mass custom field creation using the JIRA Jelly Runner.
• 78 fields in less than a minute!

23. <jira:CreateCustomField fieldType=“select”
fieldName=“Ship Location”
searcher=“multiselectsearcher”
description=“Identify where the fault can be found”
fieldScope=“project”
projectKey=“LHDIW”
customFieldIdVar=“customField”>
<jira:AddCustomFieldSelectValue value=“Starboard”>
</jira:AddCustomFieldSelectValue>
<jira:AddCustomFieldSelectValue value=“Port”>
</jira:AddCustomFieldSelectValue>
</jira:CreateCustomField>
<jira:AddFieldToScreen screen=“LHDIW” fieldId=“$
{customField.getId()}”/>

24. How did you do it? – Migration
• Use the built-in CSV importer.
• Trial runs. Many, many trial runs.
• Parse the CSV for errors. Fix as many before import.
• Use the REST interface for everything else.

25. How did you do it? – Migration
• Use JIRA to deliver a JIRA project.
• Provide training.
• Knowledgebase and Reference guides in Confluence.
• Lookup tables (old vs new JIRA key). Provide a hyperlink to the JIRA issue.
• Import the reference if possible. Disable the field later.

26. How did you do it? – Custom reports
• Identify the mandatory reports.
• Two reports required on Day 1.
• Cheaper and quicker to have an Atlassian services partner build these.
• Delivered to us as a custom JIRA plugin.

27. How did you do it? – Extend with Add-ons
• Retrieve data for automation from several databases.
• Use Marketplace plugins where possible.
• Custom plugin to retrieve data via JDBC from SQL databases during workflow
transitions.
• Retrieve data on issue save actions.

31. Go-live
0
Service desk calls

32. How did you do it? – Migration
• Day 1 was a success.
• 0 defects.
• 0 impact to the trade work force.

34. BeforeIssue Creation
10 minutes
After
2 minutes

35. BeforeIssue Queries
1 hour
After
5 minutes

36. Results
• Significant reduction in manual errors.
• Increased confidence in data integrity.
• Much happier workforce.

37. Results
I've been able to get home
each day before the sun sets,
that's a massive improvement
– Tom, Shipboard Works Control Manger

38. Results
Whatever
you're
doing,
do
more
of
that!
– Shaun, Manager Capability Development

39. 60,000
man-hours

40. Saved
$5,000,000

42. Next step – Through Life Support
• JIRA Service Desk for Warranty Management.
• Re-used much of the automation.
• Linked the JIRA Service Desk to the “as-is” delivery information in JIRA.
• Our Atlassian services partner wrote a custom plugin to identify export controlled
issues.

44. Next step – Through Life Support
• Started with the customer experience expectations.
• Transition was easy because our customers were already familiar with JIRA.
• JIRA is now used everywhere!

45. Key takeaways:
#atlassian
• JIRA is easy to integrate with enterprise systems.
• Reduce as many fields on import as possible.
• Large imports will take a long time.
• Work with your customers on their workflow. This will make them happy.

46. Thank you!
Greg Warner • Team Leader • BAE Systems • @sabre1817