What to expect at Deviniti Jira Day?
While Deviniti describes its Jira Day as “the largest in Poland”, we claim that the thing is one of the largest Atlassian Expert events in the world. Who else gathers the Jira crowd at a stadium? But the event is certainly different in other ways, too. Since it takes place in Poland, is it an English-speaking event? Is it worth traveling to for people from Western Europe, the U.S. and other parts of the world? If yes, how to prepare?
InTENSO Deviniti Jira Day took place at one of the Poland’s greatest stadiums. ©Валерий Дед, Wikipedia
InTENSO Jira Day vs. Deviniti Jira Day
In 2018, during the 6th edition of InTENSO Jira Day, InTENSO announced that they were changing their name. So, the 2013-2017 editions were officially named InTENSO Jira Days, but starting 2018 it was actually Deviniti Jira Day. There was a lot of “Deviniti formerly InTENSO” buzz everywhere in the materials.
Why they changed their name? By their own admission Deviniti = Development + Infinity, and their old name, InTenso IT Experts, is no longer consistent with their vision.
For who?
Consider this: the 2018 Deviniti Jira Day was so tightly packed with lectures from experienced Jira users (Capgemini, MetLife, Allegro and mBank among others), food (!) and Jira partners booths, that we were almost saying it was an overkill. It’s probably because a “Jira revolution” is occurring in Poland, and there is close to zero professionally organized Jira conferences. InTENSO / Deviniti was extremely professional not only for project managers and IT administrators, but also for the Atlassian partners, like us. They even invited the partners to the dinner, on the eve of the Days.
Is the event for me if I’m not a Jira user (yet)?
Yes, only browse through the list of lectures below to realize Deviniti Jira Day is for newbies, too.
Is the event international, =English-spoken?
Take a look at the presentations’ titles below. Even though some 50% are in English, there is enough to do for a non-Polish individual at the event. And we think Deviniti Jira Day 2019, Deviniti Jira Day 2020 and so on, will be even more English biased. So, what exactly to expect?
Deviniti Jira Day 2020
SoftwarePlant + BigPicture is there. Remote Edition, May 26-29, 2020.
15% of participants are from Germany, France, and the UK combined; 13% are from North America; 9% are from Asia and Australia; total registrations are from 80 countries. Lukasz Romaniuk of SoftwarePlant talks on New, flexible portfolio management with BigPicture 8 (May 27th, 2020 at 10. a.m.).
Deviniti Jira Day 2019
Was held on 29-30.05.2019 and again at the National Stadium in Warsaw.
How was the event from a visitor’s point of view? Firstly, several Jira using companies, such as Alior Bank, Biedronka, and LOT Polish Airlines showcased how they use Jira, a valuable use case for an intermediate project manager. Secondly, plenty of opportunity for networking existed, as the afterparty took place at the very same stadium and not at a club 5 km apart, as was the case in 2018. If we were to grumble about anything, it would be the gymnasium that hosted the 2019 party—you wouldn’t call the thing ‘cozy’.
Other than guests from Poland, we talked to people from Czechia, Hungary, Lithuania, Slovakia, Scandinavia, less so from Germany. The event is definitely English-speaking, and Deviniti asked us to deliver presentations in English. In spite of the 2019 admission being twice as high as in 2018, the number of guests seemed to have doubled, too. We’d call Deviniti Jira Day the largest Atlassian-like, non-Atlassian-owned event in the world.
Deviniti Jira Day 2019. Tomasz Kucharski, SoftwarePlant CEO talks on how BigPicture supports both agile, and waterfall, and hybrid project management.
2019′ Deviniti Jira Day in a nutshell
- the largest Atlassian-related event in Central-Eastern Europe
- ~400 guests, ~45 speakers
- primary presentations by: Piotr Dorosz of Deviniti, Feico Mol of Atlassian, and Tanya Gordon of HP
- both for Jira users and Jira developers
- Wed, 29th May: a project management methodologies-oriented day (15-30-minute presentations)
- Thu, 30th May: a tool-oriented day (45-90-minute workshops)
- up to three-four presentations were being delivered concurrently at any given moment – decisions, decisions, decisions
- since Deviniti Jira Day is a predominantly agile event ‘SAFe, Waterfall and hybrid project management in Jira BigPicture’ presentation shined
- local enterprises (Alior Bank; LOT Polish Airlines; Żabka, retailer), shared their experience with Jira Service Desk
- a noticeable presence of global enterprises, such as Fujitsu, HP, Ingenico Group
- platforms touched: Jira (Server, Cloud, Data Center), Confluence, Service Desk, Bitbucket, Opsgenie
- Sponsors:
- 5 Gold Vendors: Communardo, eazyBI, re:solution, Riada, SoftwarePlant
- 10 Silver Vendors: ALM Works, Comalatech, DEISER, K15t, Lucidchart, META-INF, Refined, Spartez, StiltSoft, Tempo
- 3 Media Partners: justgeek.it, justjoin.it, No Fluff Jobs
- coffee and lunch breaks
- afterparty on the 1st day, and lottery on the 2nd day
- admission:
- early bird: pln 500, ~€116, ~$130
- regular: pln 625, ~€145, ~$162
- #JiraDay2019 hashtag
How was the ‘2019 edition from a vendor’s point of view? Unlike Atlassian Summits, vendors’ booths are truly centrally located here, which is good. One practice we would call controversial is that visitors had to move round the booths and collect stickers in order to take part in the lottery, and this might have generated some fake traffic. All in all, we must say we earned plenty of business at BigPicture’s booth, and we repeatedly heard the BigPicture or Portfolio question, so here is the comparison chart. Oh, and the microphones and laptops worked so seamlessly, and there was always technical staff at hand. Keep in mind, that Deviniti is based in Wroclaw, 350 km SW from Warsaw, and they brought a team of 40 to the capital city of Poland for the occasion.
InTENSO / Deviniti Jira Day 2018
As we attended both the ‘2017 and ‘2018 editions we claim responsibly the Deviniti Jira Day is growing in size. We had a full auditorium during our “SAFe® plus BigPicture” presentation and constant traffic at our stand.
There was a constant traffic at our stand at Deviniti Jira Day 2018.
- 2018.03.14-15, Legia Stadium, Warsaw, Poland. 3,5 km from Warsaw downtown, near Czerniakowski Port on Vistula River
- 300+ guests
- Day 1 – presentations by Jira experts (full list in PDF below):
- Miroslaw Bartecki, Capgemini: Gain top JIRA performance for financial business processes
- Joanna Czochara, MetLife: JIRA Service Desk w MetLife
- Sebastian Krzewiński, Allegro: Wdrożenie JIRA Data Center w Allegro
- Maciej Ląd, PZU: Bamjen. Od pomysłu do wdrożenia
- Michał Lesiak, NEUCA: Jak Jira i Confluence zawładnęły nie tylko światem IT, ale również biznesem
- Piotr Mazij, Deviniti: Atlassian Stack. Wprowadzenie w świat produktów Atlassian
- Katarzyna Pawlak, Deviniti: Advanced customization of Jira Service Desk
- Michał Wachnik, Polkomtel: JIRA, jako narzędzie wspierające zarządzanie projektami w dużej organizacji
- Tarun Sapra, Ingenico Group: Requirement Management Automation with Atlassian Stack
- Grzegorz Mazur, WSB: How to build skills for new generation of Atlassian Engineers
- Marcin Żmigrodzki, Octigo: Zarządzanie magia, czy nauka
- Day 2 – lectures by Atlassian partners: alm Works • catWorkX • Deiser • StillSoft • Tempo plus:
- Martin Vangs, eazyBI: Basic training & typical use-cases
- Genevieve Blanch, RefinedWiki: Customizing Confluence and Jira sites.
- Fredrik Karbing, Riada: Insight Asset management for JIRA
- Gergely Gumaig, Meta-Inf: Share consciously and carefully in Confluence. Who can view your pages?
- Tom Kucharski, SoftwarePlant: SAFe®, BigPicture, BigGantt, BigTemplate and more
- Regent Hotel at a discounted price was recommended to the participants. Interestingly you could walk the 2-kilometer distance to the stadium through Warsaw’s premier Łazienkowski Park
As an exhibitor you were expected to
- take part in the partner dinner 8 p.m. – 10:30 p.m. the day before
- be at the venue at 7:30 a.m. (30 minutes before registration started)
- bring an up to 1-meter wide roll-up
- bring branded swags, such as t-shirts, pens + business cards
- brace yourself for a 2-minute introduction to the audience at the inauguration
- promote the event on social media (#JiraDay2018)
+
Great location (stadium), free 700-bay parking.
Even though Deviniti is based in Wroclaw, 4th Polish city in terms of population, they made an effort to bring the event to the capital. Thumbs up.
Brilliantly located vendors area – in the main thoroughfare and close to catering.
Considerably more participants than in 2017 – at least 300. One of the biggest partner events in Europe and we attended quite a number of them.
Each vendor was allowed 2 minutes at the very beginning to introduce themselves to the guests. This by far helped us gain attention and sell our project management apps at our booth later.
Our SAFe®– and BigPicture-related presentation filled a full conference room, just imagine close to no chairs vacant ;) And we had booked a large room.
A vendor&partner integration dinner on the eve of Deviniti Jira Day.
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Day 2 was scattered on two floors and this adversely affected the networking. People were busy moving between far-away auditoriums.
Our vendor booth was frequented to the extent we saved no time for any of the presentations ;)
14th March 2018, 10 a.m. InTenso announces that they have just transformed into Deviniti.
InTenso allows up-to-1-meter-wide rollups for their Jira Day and this hasn’t changed with their transformation to Deviniti. Our booth at InTENSO Jira Day 2017.
InTENSO Jira Day 2017
Just a few photos from the 2017 edition, so you can realize how the event has changed. InTENSO Jira Day used to be somewhat more elite and formal before, and, yes – focused on Polish users. But it certainly underwent transformation and is now more democratic and more English-spoken with the inflow of foreign guests.
InTENSO Jira Day 2017 facts
- 2017.03.29 – a single day compared to two days in 2018
- 250 participants
- Jira users who delivered presentations: accenture, ATSI (Novomatic), IPF Digital, Luxmed, PZU among others
- Atlassian vendors present: eazyBI, inTENSO, metaINF, SoftwarePlant among others
Tom Kucharski of SoftwarePlant shows the increase of world Jira “population”. InTENSO Jira Day 2017.
