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I mentioned a lot of questions about the actual difference in the PMM role in different companies. With my PM we created a service map who does what, that may help someone understand how we work in my company(no sales department exists) and what actually PMM can do.
But also maybe some thoughts of our functions differentiation and maybe some improvement ideas😌
I was really worried that something bad could happen, but lake Garda in Italy is a truly amazing place. The route took longer than expected, but just because of the amazing views. Stopped almost every 10 minutes to capture it. Totally recommend, except the dangerous tunnels the infrastructure is really great, lots of cycling hotels, cafes, rentals with professional bikes and more
For a long time I genuinely thought I was just bad at Jira.
Like, embarrassingly bad. Board full of tickets nobody touched in three weeks. In Progress column with 11 things in it. Same standup explanation four days running — "yeah still in progress, should be done today" (it was not done that day). Anyway. The board wasn't the problem.
Everything happening before the board was.
Work would show up through Slack, a DM, a comment someone dropped in a meeting and assumed I'd somehow retain. My brain would try to hold all of it. Then I'd open Jira to actually work and immediately remember six things I hadn't logged yet and now I'm not working, I'm just sitting there feeling vaguely terrible about working.
Took me embarrassingly long to figure out the fix was just... don't let things live in my head. Get them into a ticket the second they arrive. Not "I'll log it later" — later is a lie I tell myself. I have no memory budget left by 11am. I set up guided forms for recurring stuff so logging something takes like 30 seconds and requires no decisions. Once a thing exists somewhere outside my skull, my brain actually releases it. Native forms lacks the customization and sharing options so I selected Smart Forms app. Also I shared the forms with teammates via links, shortcuts or Slack triggers, so every request from anyone now arrive like a jira ticket not any other way.
The forms thing also accidentally solved another problem — every ticket that hits my board now has enough info to actually start. I used to pick something up, realize I needed three more things to proceed, put it back down, and then it would just follow me around as an unresolved thought for the rest of the day.
WIP limit was the other one. Two things in In Progress, hard stop. I resisted this for probably six months because it felt like admitting defeat or something. But starting stuff releases dopamine and finishing stuff is just work, and without a structural limit I will start things until the end of time. The column was basically a very motivated graveyard.
Notifications: turned off almost everything. Kept direct assignments and mentions, that's it. A status change on a ticket I'm not working on isn't information I need right now, it's just a Jira-flavored interruption. I check the board twice a day on purpose instead of flinching every time something pings.
Labels helped more than I expected too. Nothing fancy — just "waiting," "deep work," "admin," "urgent." Sounds stupid but it removes a whole micro-decision every time I look at the board. I'm not analyzing what to do next, I'm just recognizing.
The visual clutter thing was sneaky. I used to have like fifteen fields visible on every ticket and half of them were empty or irrelevant. Trimmed it down so each ticket shows only what I actually need to act on it.
The closing thing is the one that surprised me most. Tickets weren't getting closed because closing required going back to Jira at the precise moment my brain had already moved on and was thinking about lunch. So they'd sit In Progress for days after the work was actually done. I set up automated addition of short done-checklist with the same Smart Forms app to each ticket — submitting it auto-transitions to Done.
Last one: due dates with automated reminders. I stopped trying to hold deadlines in my head like a person with a functioning memory. Jira Automation sends a reminder when something is coming up, with a direct link to the ticket. I show up, the thing is already there, I do it
Still have rough days, not gonna pretend otherwise. But the board shows what's actually going on now, which sounds like a low bar and somehow wasn't for a long time.
Anyone else find the mess started before Jira, not inside it? Would genuinely love to know what clicked for other people.