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Slowly updating the website

Atlassian, Design, Development, Invision Community, Thoughts,
I have been working on the site a bit in the past few weeks, and most of it is small changes. Despite that, these are changes that really has been bothering me that I needed to get adjusted. Some of these changes are on the details side, but most are on the larger architecture side. I am now updating a lot of content as a result.
Moving from categories to filters
One of the big changes is that I have moved from categories and started to use filters more. There are still plenty of categories, of course, but I am trying to reduce that and instead let people find specific content based on filters. I am doing this by adding a category field for each database, and then style it with custom icons delivered by Font Awesome.
I am using a very simple PHP function to split out the values, since they come in an array. Once split out, I link them to a tag page.
<style> .jwsestoriescategorySplitter:last-child{ display: none; } </style> {{if $formValue}} {{$items = explode(',',$formValue);}} {{$items2 = explode(',',$value);}} {{foreach $items as $index => $item}} <i class="fa-kit fa-{$item}"></i> <a href="https://jimiwikman.se/tags/{$item}"> {$items2[$index]}</a><span class="jwsestoriescategorySplitter">, </span> {{endforeach}} {{endif}} This is work in progress, and it is a bit annoying because I have to create this field for all databases and use the same values. Not exactly optimized, but I can live with it for now. I am also trying not to add too many because that would make things a bit difficult to work with and to use for the end users. It is a balance I need to figure out as I go.
Building the Atlassian section
I have also been working on the Atlassian section, which I look forward to showing you soon. It is going to be a combined information section about Atlassian and their collection and apps, as well as a marketing section for me to show what I can do as a consultant for those collections and apps.
I am still figuring this out and creating graphics for it, but it is progressing well. I just need to find the balance between useful content and promotion so it feels like valuable sections to visit. I might add the Playbooks back, but we'll see how much time I want to spend on that, since the Atlassian platform is changing so rapidly lately.
I am absolutely going to bring back the Release notes database and I have a crazy idea that as a member you can add your Atlassian URL and Organization ID and that way I can create a dynamic link to the release notes in your organization. I have not verified if this works, but it would be interesting to explore that, as that will make the release notes more interesting for sure.


Dynamic blocks for groups of pages
As I am reducing the categories, I also want to make sure that I have multiple sections gathered as one area. For example, for Articles I have My articles where I write content, a database for where members can write articles and a page with information on guest posting. These are all separate areas, but I want to bring them together so it is easy to navigate, and so they feel like they are one section.
To do this, I have a navigation bar at the top of the templates and at first I just had multiple blocks, one for each type of work, but I have changed that to use just one block. It is nothing fancy, and you can do it better, but it works for me.
<style> .jwseArticles_mainmenu-Wrapper{ padding: 10px; } </style> {{$host = $_SERVER['SERVER_NAME'] . $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];}} <div class="jwseArticles_mainmenu-Wrapper"> <i-tabs class="ipsTabs ipsTabs--sticky ipsTabs--mywork ipsTabs--stretch" id="elMyWorkTabs" style="box-shadow: none; padding: 0;"> <div role="tablist"> <a href="https://jimiwikman.se/writings/my-articles/" id="elArticlesTab_MyArticles" class="ipsTabs__tab" role="tab" aria-selected="{{if strpos($host, 'jimiwikman.se/writings/my-articles/') === 0}}true{{else}}false{{endif}}"><i class="fa-duotone fa-solid fa-bookmark"></i> My Articles</a> <a href="https://jimiwikman.se/writings/community-articles/" id="elArticlesTab_CommunityArticles" class="ipsTabs__tab" role="tab" aria-selected="{{if strpos($host, 'jimiwikman.se/writings/community-articles/') === 0}}true{{else}}false{{endif}}"><i class="fa-duotone fa-solid fa-user-pen"></i> Community Articles</a> <a href="https://jimiwikman.se/writings/guest-writing/" id="elArticlesTab_GuestWriting" class="ipsTabs__tab" role="tab" aria-selected="{{if strpos($host, 'jimiwikman.se/writings/guest-writing/') === 0}}true{{else}}false{{endif}}"><i class="fa-duotone fa-solid fa-memo-circle-info"></i> Guest Writing</a> </div> <div class="ipsTabs__scrollers" data-role="tabScrollers"> <button data-direction="prev" type="button" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1" hidden=""> <i class="fa-solid fa-angle-left" aria-hidden="true"></i> </button> <button data-direction="next" type="button" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1" hidden=""> <i class="fa-solid fa-angle-right" aria-hidden="true"></i> </button> </div> </i-tabs> </div>

Focusing on Articles and Videos
Right now I am focusing on Articles and Videos, and I am considering to bake them all together into a Content navigation node. It makes sense, and it saves some space since I want to add some new functionalities and sections soon.
For Articles, I am starting to feel pretty good, even if I need to finish some minor adjustments and of course add the categories and create the icons for them. I am cleaning out old configurations that have been broken since the upgrade to Invision Community V5 ages ago, and I am building new templates and architecture to replace them.
I am also reworking the Articles and will update old articles with more content, or rewrite them to make them more viable. I want the Articles section to actually be content that have value and not just news or opinions. Those articles will move to my personal blog instead.
Speaking of Blogs I am going to rework them a bit as well and add a navigation block there as well. This way I can collect the blogs a bit better and see how to better use the Community blogs, since I am not really sure where I want to take those.
For Videos, I need to rebuild the structure a bit and adjust the templates so I can better use RSS feeds to populate videos. I am building a navigation block for Videos as well and will most likely split out the Community videos and the Atlassian videos into two, or more, databases. This so I can better focus the filters based on the type of content. I am still working on the actual architecture, so we'll see where I eventually will end up.
What about Stories?
Stories will remain the way they are for now, but I will start adding content there again and gather feedback on how to improve that section. It is not a focus area this year, but will surely be one next year.
I am here, and this site is always in progress
As always, I am working behind the scenes with smaller changes and updating content. This may not always be something that you see, but I will take advantage of the Atlassian platform to see if I can visualize this a bit better. Perhaps I can even make you more involved if I can figure out how to better provide value for you.
So, speak up if you want to contribute or influence what I should do next!
By 💫 Jimi Wikman in Thoughts ·

I have been a bit silent, but I have also done a lot of things

Development, Personal, Thoughts,
It has been a while since I sat down and wrote here on my personal blog. It is partly because between work and the never ending saga of trying to get my father's passing documented with the different Swedish government entities, but there are other reasons as well. One such reason is that I have been very tired as this spring and summer has been very difficult from a pollen perspective. All of these things combined has meant that I have a lot less energy than I usually have.
Despite that, however, I am still working behind the scenes, and I am moving forward with planning and structure as well as building things here and there. I have also made some decisions regarding the tooling I am using on a daily basis. I have been struggling a bit ever since I made the decision at the beginning of this year to completely separate work from private life, but lately I have made some changes, and it feels pretty good right now.
One thing that was feeling weird was email, where I was planning to use Outlook. The Outlook app however is not something I like very much and after going back and forth I stepped back to Google Workspaces and Gmail. While not the absolutely best email experience, it works and most importantly it works on both desktop and mobile for me. I obviously have connected Gmail to my Atlassian platform to connect emails with activities in Jira.
Speaking of Jira, I recently took the decision to step up my usage of Atlassian products, so I have upgraded both Jira and Confluence to Premium. While there is a cost related to this obviously I feel that it is worth the cost. This is partly because I have moved the text from my book to Confluence, but I also find that I have a lot of use for both Confluence and Jira as part of planning things in my life.
I am still debating if I should invest in Jira Service Management as well, but the price tag is 3 times that of both Jira and Confluence, so I am not sure if I want to make such an investment at this time. With all the costs I am accumulating now with various tools, I'll hold off for a bit longer while I ponder how to proceed. I am obviously using Jira Product Discovery, and I am experimenting to see how to best it for both content creation and website development.
Speaking of the website, I am working behind the scene on the Atlassian section of the site. It is going well, and I am slowly building up the components so I can start building the many new pages. The concept is simple and that is that I initially will make pages for each product (or app) and collection and provide both information on the app itself and connect to different resources.
Speaking of resources, I am reviewing the many databases I have built over the years and I will delete most of them as they are obsolete. Some of them are currently hidden, and I will leave them as such until I feel it is time to focus on them again. The cleaning itself will probably take several years, so I am in no rush to focus on new things right now. Instead, I will focus on creating content and promotion for the website itself.
One fun thing I have found is that I can have a lot of fun using AI to help with code examples when I get stuck on something. It is surprising how well some AIs can generate examples based on Invision Community and PHP. I was not expecting that, and it has been quite useful in some situations when the code is not working as I think it should. After trying a few, I have decided to focus on Microsoft 365 Co-pilot for now, as I like the output and the fact that it is included in the family package I am already paying for.
My main focus right now however is to get my book the Advanced Atlassian Administration guidebook, or A3 for short. As mentioned, I am moving the raw text to Confluence and I have invited a few people to help me by reviewing the content. I am having a great time connecting the Atlassian apps to this process, and I am going to add a few marketplace apps this weekend just as icing on the cake. For news, I have decided to step away from the traditional route and I have set up a page on Substack. This will act as a kind of combined newsletter and blog at the same time. For my book, I am also exploring Loom as I have been struggling to set things up to make actual YouTube videos lately.

So a ton of things are happening, and I feel like I am slowly, finally getting back to myself again since my father passed away in April.
By 💫 Jimi Wikman in Thoughts ·

A good week

Personal, Thoughts, Work,
This week was a good week. I had a good meeting with my managers about managing time and expectations, and then I started to enroll in a new project. I also started the internal training I have prepared for my colleague, and I got a fair bit of work done on the presentation for the webinar I will host later this month. I also had two meeting with Atlassian that were very productive, and even the internal meetings at work felt more productive for some reason.
This weekend I have slept well, and yesterday I actually slept a whooping 14 hours. It shows not just in my mood, but also in my blood sugar, which has dropped significantly. Because of this I have been writing a bit again in my book and I will continue with that today. I also have several videos I am planning to record, which feels good as I have felt a bit too stressed to record lately.
I think that stress comes from many sources, where one is of course the bad experiences I suffered last year at work. This is still affecting me a bit, I think, perhaps more than I want to admit even. Starting a new job is always fun, but a bit stressful as you need to find your place and understand the culture. In my case I am employed in Sweden, but my line manager is in Poland, so it is a bit more confusing than normal. The culture in Poland and the culture in Sweden is also different and if we add the fact that Sii Sweden only have a few employees and Sii Poland is a massive company with 7500 people, there are some additional dimensions to consider.
Overall, though, it does not feel too bad, even if it takes more effort than expected to understand how things work and the actual expectations are. This is why I asked for a meeting this week to go over this, and I think the conversation was good. I am starting to get closer to my colleagues, which is always more difficult when you never meet in person. I did meet some of the team when I went to the leadership conference in Warsaw, but it was a bit too hectic and overwhelming to really have time to sit down with people to get to know them.
I am off to what Sii call Integration next week, when the purpose is to get to know each other better. I actually have two of these, even with one being here in Stockholm, and then I am flying off to Gdańsk on Friday. I thought the integration was in Gdańsk, but it is actually 400km south of that, so I will be in a car for 4 hours, which is so weird. I will get almost no sleep as I will land in Gdańsk around midnight, and then I have to get up and get ready to be picked up at 6.30 in the morning. Then it is integration all day until late in the evening, and checkout is at 11 on Sunday. I then will travel by car again back to Gdańsk before my flight leaves at 20.30, so I will be home around 23 and in bed around midnight.
Considering the importance of eating right and getting proper sleep for my diabetes, this is not ideal, but that is the price you pay for not checking things before you accept :)
The reason I did not check properly is that this came right after my father passed away. It was very sudden and came as a shock for me. My mother also became very sick right after and almost passed away as well, as she got both a nasty flu and blood poisoning. Fortunately, my aunt lives nearby, and she could take my mom to the hospital where they could take care of her. I was planning the funeral and trying to figure out all the things that need to be done after someone dies, which was no easy task as I got mixed information.
There were several weeks of trying to balance 13-hour workdays (with commuting) with getting everything planned for the funeral while also worrying about my mother, and it took its toll mentally. I have never been so relieved after a funeral as I was after my father was finally laid to rest next to my brother, and I felt a bit guilty about that. I feel that I have not really had the time to grieve yet, so I get bursts of sorrow here and there, but I need to center myself a bit more before I can do that, I think. I think I am slowly getting there and once this month is over with all the new things happening, I think I will find the time and place to say my goodbye finally.

While there is still a lot of stressful things to manage, but at work and privately, it is not bad. I am slowly regaining my footings and my energy, and with two long weekends this month I should feel even better soon.
Speaking of feeling better, I had two meetings with Atlassian this week and I attended a local Atlassian Community event here in Stockholm. The first meeting was on Monday, where Community Champions were invited to talk about the name changes Atlassian has made to call their products Apps. It was a great meeting with good information about the directions Atlassian is taking and why. I am still not fully onboard with the name changes, but I understand it a lot better now.
The second one was on Thursday where I was invited by Mikael Helldén who I worked with at H&M and who is now the head of the Atlassian platform at H&M as well as the Community Leader for the Stockholm Atlassian Community. This meeting was with Chris Shernaman who is in charge of the new Success Champion program that is currently in beta. It was a very interesting meeting and I will make a few videos and probably some articles about this in the future.
The ACE (Atlassian Community Event) took place on Tuesday, and it was extra interesting since it was about Teams 25, which is what my webinar will be about as well in a few weeks. It was a small event with just 15 or so attending, but we had great presentations, and it felt nice to finally be able to attend since I missed the previous two events due to being sick and my father's passing. It was nice to see familiar faces and to get to know some new people as well.
This weekend I have been writing in my book again after some time, and it feels good. I have a lot of things I want to add into the book, and I would like to have a first draft done this fall. That is because I would like to have a finished product in May next year so I can release it in time for next year's Teams event. I will probably have a first round of feedback after the summer with local Atlassian profiles, and then another round in the fall if all goes as planned.
I have around 130 pages at the moment, and the goal is probably between 400 and 600 pages at least. For now, I am just adding raw text and I have been jumping around a bit to focus on where my mood has been. I will continue this quantity over quality process until I feel I have the basics in place, and then I will start refining the content and plan the graphics. Yesterday I wrote about authority and handling conflict, and today I will focus on security and access, which is a huge topic.
This week I also decided to finally create a LinkedIn group for Atlassian Administrators with the focus on keeping people updated on news and Atlassian related events. So far it has been growing well with 70+ people in just a week with pretty good engagement. The creation of this group and the positive response has given me a little energy boost, which shows that I might need some positive feedback in other areas as well :)
As you can tell by this wall of text, I am feeling the urge to create again. I have quite a lot on my private to-do list, so I will dig deep into those and get them done, as that will also reduce stress. I am feeling creative, and you might have seen that I released two videos related to Confluence, and I plan to make more videos today or tomorrow. I am also setting up the Atlassian section here, which will be equal parts information about the Atlassian offerings, but also about me and my services and knowledge related to certain topics.

So, this has been a good week.
By 💫 Jimi Wikman in Thoughts ·

Titles that don't mean what they say and words that make no sense - is this how we want the future to be?

Thoughts, Ways of Working,
Product Manager own the product while the product owner manage it. Scrum Manager work both towards management and the team and everyone is an engineer, but have no scientific approach to anything they do.

Sometimes I feel that the world has gone mad and that titles as well as words are used without logic or even thought sometimes.

A Product Owner, owns the product.
A Product Manager, manages the product.

It is defined in the titles themselves...

A Scrum Manager is just a manager in a fake Scrum setting, or you would not need a manager to begin with. Just throw out Scrum and start working properly instead and call the position a team leader or team manager that fit the work that is being done. Or just use Scrum if you prefer that and have a Scrum Master.

A Business Analyst work on the business side to help sort out business needs. A Requirement Analyst help to break down business needs to requirements.
Both roles are facilitating to act as translators and guides. They have no deciding authority, but work as the bridge between the business side and the implementation side.

Requirements are legally binding contracts of work the defines what should be done and how to verify that the work is done according to what is being needed. Requirements should be defined based on the level of trust between the business side and the implementation side.

A Full Stack anything is just a junior pretending to know more than they do. Unless you define the stack and what full means, you are just...well full of it.

Engineers work with a scientific approach and unless you actually can explain how you conduct our work with a scientific approach, then you are not an engineer. And no, Agile is not a scientific approach.

Projects are fixed in time, cost and scope, and they are funded as investments, not operational work. If whatever work you are doing is not fixed, and it is not funded through an investment budget, then you are not working in a project.

I know making things up to make you feel important and using words that are wrong because that is "how it has always been", but we are just spiraling towards understanding what we do and what we mean less and less.

How about we stop using what has always been and start applying logic to our workplaces?

Or has that ship already sailed, and we are doomed to a future when words no longer have meaning or logic to them? Will we just talk gibberish like management consultants and c-level management spewing buzzwords to sound important?

What do you think?

By 💫 Jimi Wikman in Thoughts ·

First week at Sii Sweden

Work,
This week I started my new position as Atlassian Architect for Sii Sweden, an Atlassian Platinum partner, after a lightning fast interview phase. It has been quite the interesting week with onboarding and getting to know the massive organization that Sii International is. I am now working from a new location in Stockholm that I do not have been to very much, so it is interesting to explore the area as well.
Some of you might know that I have been looking for a new employer after QRIOS decided to close down the part of the organization I was supposed to work at after I left Sinch. I had the luxury of having three amazing companies offering me different positions. Sii Sweden cane in last minute and I had 3 interviews in just a few days, and then they gave me an offer. After weighing my options, which was not easy with three amazing offers, I picked Sii Sweden.
I started working on Monday this week and so far the journey has been great. The Swedish CEO Miguel Vergara is great, and he has done everything he can to make me feel welcome. The Sii head of Atlassian Maciej Szostek have provided a ton of information on what his vision and plans are for the Atlassian part of Sii and I have to say, he has me sold on those plans! I am really looking forward to work with Maciej and the rest of the Sii Atlassian team towards that vision.
Speaking of the Sii Atlassian team I have only met a few so far, and they are amazing. I am not easily impressed when it comes to Atlassian competence, but working with my fellow Atlassian architect Wojciech Miecznikowski and one of our amazing Atlassian consultants Piotr Mazij, I am impressed. They clearly know what they are doing and with experts like that on my side... well, let us just say I feel good about the future :)
As you might notice my Atlassian colleagues names are not Swedish and that is because Sii Sweden is a part of Sii Poland. Sii Poland is a massive organization with 7500+ employees and Sii Sweden is a small, but growing, extension of that organization. I was very impressed about the origin story of Sii Poland that was built from one man to the impressive organization we have today. You can watch the impressive story that our CEO Gregoire Nitot undertook to build the Polish branch of Sii in this video.
Globally Sii have 16,000 employees in pretty much all areas you can think of, and it all started with a French company called Groupe SII back in 1979. For me this is an interesting situation because in Sweden we are still small in terms of organization, but in Poland we are quite big and globally we are massive. It provides an exciting opportunity to help our Swedish organization grow, and I especially look forward to growing the Atlassian side of Sii in Sweden.
Although I have only been with Sii one week now, I feel very good about the work that has been done so far and the vision for the future for both the Swedish branch and the Atlassian business area. There are many exciting opportunities to explore and with the support of a massive organization with high competence in almost all fields you can think of and coworkers that are amazing...
The future is so bright I have to wear shades (Timbuk 3 - 1986).
By 💫 Jimi Wikman in Thoughts ·

Why is it that we dislike learning from experience when it comes to how we measure our work?

Thoughts,
You would think that becoming exponentially better at measuring and anticipating risks is something most organizations would spend time and money on. Especially since it is the core of making sure we create value from our work and to manage our financials as an organization.

Just as we as a society benefit from learning from history so we can avoid wars and cultural destruction as well as genocide, surely we as organizations would emphasize on preventing disasters, both long term and short term?

Yet, many organizations put zero effort into long time learnings or even document neither triumphs nor disasters. Instead, we run as fast as we can and any learnings we make along the way have the stickiness of Teflon.

While the definition of insanity really has nothing to do with repeating the same bad thing over and over as the term is a legal one and not a medical one, I would argue that constantly ignoring lessons from your failures or successes is stupid to the point of negligent.

If you don't make estimates in measurements that can actually be evaluated and learned from, then you are robbing yourself and your organization of that learning experience. You are hindering your own growth as a professional, and you are most likely hurting your organization by repeatedly failing to produce the right value at the right time.

It is not enough to produce value after all. You have to create the right value at the right time, and you need to continuously improve your competence in making those estimations.

You either learn from your experiences, or you are doomed to repeat them.
By 💫 Jimi Wikman in Thoughts ·

Have we forgotten to think INSIDE the box?

Thoughts,
We have been told to think outside the box for so long, so maybe we are forgetting how to think INSIDE the box?

We placed things in the box for a reason, but maybe we have forgotten why we did it in the first place?

If we always think outside the box, why do we have the box at all and does that strange box we are supposed to think outside actually exist anymore?

Personally I think the only thing that matters is that we THINK, regardless if it is inside or outside the box.

Don't just do without thinking...
By 💫 Jimi Wikman in Thoughts ·

Why do you insist on keep digging holes where you stand?

Thoughts, Ways of Working,
If your goal is to build a road to the future where your vision is aimed, why do you insist on keep digging holes where you stand?

What makes less sense is why you compare the speed with which you are digging those holes instead of measuring how far the road towards your vision you are getting?

Unless your road to success is a hole straight to hell, perhaps it would make sense to lift your gaze towards the horizon instead of staring down at your feel at the bottom of the hole you are so frantically digging?

Vision requires goals. Goals require planning and planning require focused execution. Ad-hoc ways of working where you make things up as you go along without focus, goals or vision is just you digging a hole where you stand.

Measuring the speed of which you dig your hole or patting yourself on the back for thinking less and doing more is a rather interesting choice if the goal is to move forward...
By 💫 Jimi Wikman in Thoughts ·

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