Using Ticket Tracking Software and Agile Techniques to Accelerate Science and Operations at the Broad Institute, with Sadiya Akasha

1. Using JIRA and Agile Techniques to
Speed Science at the Broad Institute
May 24, 2017 | Bio-IT World

2. Mission & Method
• Our mission is to support and nurture the accelerating pace of science
• Our method is to provide groups with visual tools to scale their work, shorten
cycles, and empower teams
• The Broad has used JIRA and Agile techniques to both organize traditional IT
work and scientific workflows
• Use is expanding into additional scientific and administrative areas and
deepening within IT and labs across the Institute

3. About the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard
• Propelling the understanding and
treatment of disease
• Collaborating deeply
• Reaching globally
• Empowering scientists
• Building partnerships
• Sharing data and knowledge
• Promoting inclusion

4. About the Speakers
• Sadiya Akasha is a
Project Manager in IT
• Connect via LinkedIn:
https://linkedin.com/in/sadi
ya-akasha
• Bruce Kozuma is a
Principal Systems
Analyst in IT
• Connect via LinkedIn:
https://linkedin.com/in/bk
ozuma

5. Accelerated Pace in Data Science Platform
Data
Science
Platform
(DSP) uses
JIRA & Agile
to accelerate
pace of
genomic
sequencing

6. JIRA Spreads Beyond DSP and Agile Introduced
• The Broad encourages movement of people between departments, which
spreads knowledge/expertise, e.g., Sadiya moved from DSP into IT
• IT identified the need for a tracking system across a variety of labs and
administrative groups
• IT had experience with Agile principles and practices
• IT had knowledge of how DSP used JIRA (a visual task/project management
tool), to meet their sample tracking and workflow visualization needs
• Using JIRA with Agile techniques could (and does) result in more people
spending more time on critical tasks and not on paperwork!

7. Adoption of Core Values
Individuals & interactions
Processes & tools
Working software
Comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration
Contract negotiation
Responding to change
Following a plan
Agile Values and Techniques
Recommended Agile Techniques
• Daily standups
• Weekly planning/Sprint planning
• Continuous improvement
• ”Inspect and Adapt” attitude
• Iterative releases
• “Less is more” project design
• Cross-functional teams

8. Physical and Virtual Board for IT Project Portfolio

9. Case 1: Data Center Relocation
Re-packaged sample tracking concept within BITS to track compute assets for a
data center consolidation project

10. Case 2: Lab Sample Tracking
Scientific projects related to cell lines use JIRA to track cell lines in the
characterization pipeline
• Achilles: https://portals.broadinstitute.org/achilles
• PRISM: https://www.broadinstitute.org/news/7944

11. Current State of JIRA & Agile
• Multiple JIRA instances in use, both on premises & cloud
• On premises JIRA has extensive integration into internal systems
• Cloud JIRA
• Users: ~600/Groups: ~30
• Additional use cases
• Grant status
• Software projects
• Facilities
• Corporate collaborations
• Weekly growth
• Agile
• DSP has Agile coaches on staff
• Internal affinity group established
• Training offered, more planned

12. Challenges
• Cloud uptime: Generally good, but very noticeable when down
• Gradation of user permissions: Gradation of permissions limited, meaning
JIRA administrators have more-than-desired role in JIRA project administration
• Diverse needs: Utility of templatesshared JIRA projects limited, since users do
have unique needs, given breadth of Broad activities
• JIRA’s evident focus on software development: Some fieldsroles not
intuitive for non-software types (e.g., user type Developer)
• Future performancescalability vs affordability: Some concerns as use
continues to grow at current price point
• Developing JIRA Cloud capabilities: JIRA Cloud APIs do not yet match On
premises JIRA APIs

13. Success Factors
• Re-imagining basic use of JIRA with Agile framing allowed rapid
evolution/adoption to serve science & administration
• Community desire to emulate effectiveness of DSP
• Decentralizing Agile and JIRA knowledge
• Training lab managers/scientific managers to increase facility with tools
• Training all of IT on Agile to meet increased demand
• Self-organized communities to promote Agile
• Ensuring logistical support to help meet demand
• Drop in office hours
• Ticketing system for JIRA-related requests
• Broad-specific documentation for users and administrators
• Training classes for users and administrators

14. Future Plans
• Offer additional internal training classes to continue building JIRA capabilities
throughout the Broad, e.g.,
• Introduction to Agile & Lean (current offering)
• JIRA 101: JIRA users & JIRA project administrators (current offering)
• JIRA 201: JIRA project administrators & JIRA administrators (planned)
• JIRA 301: JIRA administrators, e.g., standards (planned)
• Refine internal support model, e.g., improving documentation of standards,
existing integrations
• Integrate JIRA Cloud into science-facing applications

15. Key Takeaways
• Goal is to help accelerate the pace of science
• Use JIRA to enable Agile values of openness, transparency, responding to
customer needs
• Use Agile techniques such as short development cycles and retrospectives to
rapidly provision working solutions
• JIRA Cloud is flexible enough to accommodate diverse use cases from
software development, IT service provision, facilities, and laboratory sample
tracking

16. Acknowledgements
Broad Information
Technology Services
• Lukas Karlsson
• Peter Ragone
• Kristian Maiorano
• Eric Jones
• Robert Damian
Science
• Zach Leber
• Jennifer Roth
• Diolinda Vaz
Ex-Broadies
• Marc Monar
• Chris Dwan
Thank you to the many people who helped paved the way for current and
future success! A few notable individuals: