---
title: How Yahoo is Governing JIRA at Scale
description: How Yahoo is Governing JIRA at Scale
image: https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/5a677ce05577f10001188a29/5a96e8f56914880001c50b8f_ServiceRocket%20Atlassian%20Open%20Graph%20Image.png
---

## [How Yahoo is Governing JIRA at Scale](https://blog.servicerocket.com/adoption/blog/2015/01/how-yahoo-is-governing-jira-at-scale)

Posted by [Matt Doar](https://blog.servicerocket.com/adoption/author/matt-doar) on January 06, 2015

Find me on:

[Twitter ](https://twitter.com/mdoar)

*by Matt Doar* ([@mdoar](http://www.twitter.com/mdoar))

Yahoo's Chef de Cuisine [Jordan Dea-Mattson](https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordandeamattson) spoke to a packed room at this year's Atlassian Summit. His presentation [Governing JIRA at Scale](https://summit.atlassian.com/archives/2014/massive-teams/governing-jira-at-scale) covered the top-level view of how Yahoo is using JIRA. (Disclaimer: he and I co-authored the presentation and ServiceRocket has been helping Yahoo increase JIRA adoption). Much of what he said is good advice for everyone who administers any complex application at a large company. His conclusion was **KICS** instead of [KISS](http://www.wikiwand.com/en/KISS_principle), where the "C" stands for "Consistent". He pointed out that if you allow too much customization you will make the automation harder. And that automation will be vital in the long run. After all, we all have other things to do than administer complex applications every day.

He also noted that "just because you can configure JIRA every which way doesn't mean you should." Flexibility has long-term costs associated with it, so he recommended not providing or even offering some configurations for JIRA. Then he noted that not everyone will be completely happy, but that's the balance to be found.

Dea-Mattson's presentation contrasted interestingly with another later on. In "Scaling Confluence to Support Global Teams" Matthew Gorton from GapTech described how their use of Confluence was grown organically, driven by the needs of different teams. Two different approaches for two different companies.

*Take a look at Jordan's presentation slides, provided by [Atlassian](http://www.slideshare.net/GoAtlassian/governing-jira-at-scale-jordan-deamattson?ref=https://summit.atlassian.com/archives/2014/massive-teams/governing-jira-at-scale), below:*

** [Governing JIRA at Scale - Jordan Dea-Mattson](https://www.slideshare.net/GoAtlassian/governing-jira-at-scale-jordan-deamattson) ** from **[Atlassian](https://www.slideshare.net/GoAtlassian)**

 Topics: [Jira](https://blog.servicerocket.com/adoption/topic/jira), [Enterprise Software](https://blog.servicerocket.com/adoption/topic/enterprise-software), [Atlassian](https://blog.servicerocket.com/adoption/topic/atlassian)

| ![](https://blog.servicerocket.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Matt-300x283-1.jpg?height=100&name=Matt-300x283-1.jpg) | Written by [Matt Doar](https://blog.servicerocket.com/adoption/author/matt-doar) Matt Doar joined ServiceRocket in 2011 to lead the Atlassian Consulting team in Palo Alto. Prior to that he was the founder of Consulting Toolsmiths, an Atlassian consulting company based in San Jose, CA. He is the author of three O'Reilly books including "Practical JIRA Administration" and "Practical JIRA Plugins". He likes single malts and good cigars, in either order. |
| --- | --- |

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