JIRA-Slinging Ticket Monkey

I first penned JIRA-Slinging Ticket Monkey in a 2015 humor post. Little did I know how much it would resonate.

Its intent was to reflect — in a very smart aleck way — the frustrations I was hearing from product owners who felt they were dancing to the monotonous tune of some organizational organ grinder.

Over the past three-and-a-half-years these frustrations have been validated more than once by product people other than myself using this phrase as part of their presentations during Raleigh-based Meetups. Basically, I’ve observed nervous laughter followed by quiet weeping and gnashing of teeth by those who recall situations where the focus was on generating user stories versus delivering value.

I was reminded of these instances while listening to Episode 79 of Cory Bryan’s most excellent DeliverIt podcast for Agile product owners this morning. At the 28:55 mark, Cory reminds us that “Simply using JIRA does not make you agile,” a point to which he adds emphasis with the correct use of ‘JIRA-Slinging Ticket Monkey.’

So given the popularity of this phrase, and the response to it, I thought I might offer this new addition to my popular ‘Product Management Prioritization Menagerie’ O’Rly-like parody book covers:

I hope you find the image a useful visual to any Agile or Product Management presentation you’re working on. Also if you do use it, I hope you reach out to me here on Twitter to let me know how well it was or was not received.

Oh, and if you’re looking for a visualization of what I mean by an organ-grinder monkey, then I recommend zooming ahead to the 1:12 minute mark of this hilarious Bugs Bunny — Hurdy-Gurdy Hare cartoon.

IMHO