Ask HN: How to Avoid Writing in Jira?

[utkarsh_apoorva]

Hi HN,

I am an engineer turned PM.

My engineering leads will not switch to other softwares (LinearApp / Clubhouse).

I do not mind watching the progress in JIRA, but writing user stories in JIRA is a serious problem.

Here’s why: All of my thinking happens in documents. Putting ideas in JIRA can take hours, and it transports me to a non-creative world with grunt, data entry work. I do it. But it is expensive in terms of time, and attention sunk.

Is there a way to convert document paragraphs / sentences in documents to user stories in JIRA?

I may write a script to do this and put it up on Github, but I am wondering if a solution already exists. It must, it's a pretty common problem with most PMs in my network.

[jimmyvalmer]

First, I'm sorry you've been relegated to PM. Jira (and PMing, generally) is valuable insofar as it's created jobs. But it's like the five highway workers standing around the hole: one person to dig, and the other four to watch.

To not answer your question, I don't understand your question. To me, a "user story" is the same as a document, just a bunch of prose no one will read.

[utkarsh_apoorva → jimmyvalmer]

You can replace "user story" with tickets, issues, or tasks - anything that goes into Jira as a part of the sprint plan.

Thankfully, most engineers I know read, edit and mark those items as done in a project / sprint management tool.

[lwrm]

You didn't mention what you are using for documents creation. Pandoc has support for Jira Wiki markup, and supports a lot of different input formats.

[utkarsh_apoorva → lwrm]

Usually Google Docs. Lately Notion.

Jira Wiki markup seems like a viable solution, even if it has a bit of learning curve.

[lwrm → utkarsh_apoorva]

You could use Google Docs, save it as ODT or some other format, and then convert it to Jira markup, (hopefully) preserving formatting. It sounds manual, but I am sure there are ways to automate it.

[utkarsh_apoorva → lwrm]

Interesting idea. Will try to do this. If I can automate it, probably that's it.

[Akcium]

I just leave a comment here saying that I hate JIRA :)

(Hopefully this comment will up your question and help a bit)

[utkarsh_apoorva → Akcium]

Haha. Thanks for the help. Shared hatred is revolutionary.