I know that ARM uses Jira, Confluence and Bamboo. Its possible others use more of the tools, but that is what I am familiar with.
Jira is used for project management as well as task management, enhancement requests and bug tracking. I have activities on 3 projects where my tasks are tracked on Jiras. I can easily see what I’m doing this sprint on each project. I can see if my tasks are dependent or blocked by other tasks. I can keep embedded notes about my progress, or my issues and questions, along with each task. Others can ask me questions or provide answers directly in the task. And in the backlog I can see what tasks I have coming up that are not currently scheduled. I can use the same system to raise questions or issues with some of the other projects I am working with.
I don’t use Bamboo but some projects do for continuous integration work. Some projects use Jenkins for this, some use Bamboo. I’m only familiar with these products but don’t actively use them. However, those that do say they are very valuable in making sure that code changes don’t move a project backwards. For those not familiar, continuous integration involves taking recent changes to a project’s version control repository and using that to build several different environments and running regression tests on them to insure that current functionality is maintained and not broken. In other words, the functionality does not regress, it progresses. And this happens automatically, with the tool watching for commits, firing off updates, builds, and regressions, and reporting results back.
Confluence is another tool we use a lot. I both use and author pages. They are a convenient way to publish information and let people comment on information in ways that email and Slack channels absolutely cannot provide. If someone reads a page I wrote and asks a question via email that chain is lost and cannot be shared to others in the future. However, comments directly on a page, along with responses, means everyone can read it. These pages can also be collaboratively authored, edited and expanded. I have a page, for example, for a team I lead where I put together various sections that they get filled in by others, one section at a time. It has worked great. And I can “watch” pages, and get emails when a page has been edited, with a link to the page and a brief description of what has changed. Wonderful.
We don’t use Jira Service Desk, we use Service Now (and I have considered investing in them), but I have heard rumors we are looking at Service Desk (completely unconfirmed rumors, I could be quite wrong).
This first-hand use is why I started investing in TEAM. However I know this could be a mistake. My very first stock I ever bought (back in the day of calling a broker, asking for a purchase, and then mailing a physical check to pay for it!) was Borland International. And I loved their compilers (they really were good) and used them all the time. However, that great product did not turn into a great stock. In fact the company went under. This won’t happen to Atlassian, they will survive. The question is will the stock make me as happy as their tools do?
We also use Slack, which is not public yet but I believe it is going to go public this year. So far I’m quite happy with Slack, and prefer it a LOT compared to using Skype, which is what we used to do. I also use Tableau a lot and find it very useful. My experience at Tableau Conference 2018 is what pushed me over the edge to buy Alteryx, actually. I have not invested in Tableau however because I’m not convinced they are growing fast but I keep eyeing them as another investment.