Atlassian Team Playbooks

Maximize team success with Atlassian Team Playbooks

by with No Comment Atlassian

Fostering collaboration, continuous improvement and operational excellence is critical for organizations that want to remain competitive. Atlassian Team Playbooks are a valuable tool that provides resources to address common team challenges and improve project execution. They provide clear guidance on roles and responsibilities, improve communication and promote a proactive learning culture. Discover the benefits of Atlassian Team Playbooks.

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Most popular playbooks from Atlassian Team Playbooks

There are more than 50 Atlassian Team Playbooks that organizations can use to increase productivity and communication, accelerate digital transformation and much more. Listing them all here would be a bit much. Therefore, we have decided to provide you with a selection of the nine most popular playbooks.

Retrospective Play - Atlassian Team Playbook

Retrospective Play

Retrospective Play is a gateway to fostering a culture of continuous improvement. By reflecting on past actions and results, teams can gain invaluable insights that lead to better decision-making. Companies that use this method not only strengthen their problem-solving skills, but also create a culture of transparency and accountability. This game is a catalyst for fostering a proactive mindset that thrives on feedback and iterative learning, which is critical for navigating complex and dynamic business landscapes.

Roles & Responsibilities - Atlassian Team Playbook

Roles & Responsibilities Play

The essence of the roles and responsibilities game lies in its ability to bring clarity to team dynamics. It defines exactly who is responsible for what, preventing overlaps and gaps that can negatively impact the project timeline. Companies that use this method benefit from improved team synergy, streamlined workflows and significantly improved project execution. It is a cornerstone for building a well-coordinated team where everyone is focused on the common goals.

Health Monitor Play - Atlassian Team Playbooks

Health Monitor Play

The Health Monitor Play acts as a mirror that reflects the true state of a team's operational health. It enables self-assessment against the attributes of high-performing teams and helps to identify strengths and areas for improvement. For organizations, this game is essential to take the pulse of team performance and ensure that the team is continuously improving. It is a blueprint for driving excellence and achieving operational efficiency.

DACI Play - Atlassian Team Playbooks

DACI Play (Driver, Approver, Contributor, Informed)

The DACI framework is critical for clarifying decision-making roles and responsibilities within a team or project. It identifies individuals as Drivers (D), who drive the decision-making process; Approvers (A), who make the decision; Contributors (C), who provide input; and those who are Informed (I) about the decision. This structured approach ensures that decisions are made efficiently, with clear communication and accountability, allowing the project to run more smoothly.

Icebreaker Activities play - Atlassian Team Playbooks

Icebreaker Activities Play

Icebreaker activities serve to warm up the group, create a comfortable and inclusive atmosphere and encourage interaction, especially at the beginning of meetings or workshops. These activities can range from simple introductions to engaging games or discussions that help to break down barriers, encourage open communication and set a positive tone for the collaboration to come.

Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) Play - Atlassian Team Playbooks

Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) Play

The OKRs framework is a goal-setting tool that helps teams define, communicate and track goals and their outcomes. By setting objectives (ambitious and inspiring goals) and key results (specific, measurable actions to achieve the goals), teams can align their efforts, fully commit to the shared goals and transparently monitor progress. This game is fundamental to maintaining focus, alignment and momentum in achieving key results.

Project Kickoff Play - Atlassian Team Playbooks

Project Kickoff Play

The project kickoff is a structured approach to starting a project on the right foot. It aligns the team on the goals, scope, roles and responsibilities of the project and establishes a clear plan of action. By setting expectations, defining success criteria and ensuring everyone is on the same page, this game creates a solid foundation for successful project execution and helps mitigate risks associated with misalignment or misunderstandings.

Sparring Play - Atlassian Team Playbooks

Sparring Play

Sparring sessions provide a platform for teams to present their work, gather constructive feedback and refine ideas in a structured, supportive environment. This practice encourages diverse perspectives, constructive criticism and iterative refinement, helping to improve the quality of work and ensure that the best ideas are put forward and refined together.

Standups Play

Standups Play

Standups are short, regular meetings where team members update each other on their progress, discuss the day's work and identify any obstacles or challenges. This approach promotes transparency, timely problem solving and ensures that the team stays aligned on priorities. It is an important practice to maintain a steady flow of communication and address issues in a timely manner, which contributes to the overall agility and effectiveness of the team.

You can find more Atlassian Team Playbooks on the Atlassian website.

Why should I implement the Atlassian Team Playbooks in my company?

Implementing the Atlassian Team Playbooks can significantly improve your teams' collaboration, communication and problem-solving skills. These playbooks address key issues in team dynamics that can hinder project success if ignored. They promote a culture of openness, continuous improvement and clear communication that is essential for successful project delivery. The structured framework of these playbooks provides actionable insights and plans that clarify the path to resolution and improvement.

These versatile playbooks can be tailored to your organization's individual needs and challenges, making them a valuable business asset. Not only do they improve operational efficiency, but they also create a resilient and adaptable organization. With the support of XALT, these playbooks can be seamlessly integrated into your existing processes and offer significant benefits in achieving your business goals.

How to get started with Atlassian Team Playbooks

Getting started with Atlassian Playbooks can be a smooth process with the right approach and guidance. Below is a suggested strategy broken down into manageable steps to ensure a successful implementation in your organization:

1. sensitization and training:

Understanding the playbooks: Learn about Atlassian Playbooks and their benefits. Use resources, attend workshops or consult experts like those at XALT for deeper insights.

2nd evaluation:

Identify the needs: Evaluate the team's current challenges to determine which Atlassian Team Playbooks would be most beneficial.

Customization: Customize the selected games to the individual needs of your company based on the evaluation.

3. planning:

Implementation plan: Create a plan for the implementation of the selected measures, listing timelines, required resources and teams involved.

Training: Provide training to ensure all stakeholders understand the process and objectives of the playbooks.

4th version:

Executing the moves: Execute the moves according to the plan and encourage open communication and active participation.

Documentation: Document the findings, measures and feedback for later use and analysis.

5. check and improve:

ReviewEvaluate the effectiveness of the actions after implementation in terms of overcoming the challenges and achieving the objectives.

Continuous improvement: Based on the review, make adjustments for future iterations to ensure continuous improvement.

6. support and guidance:

Expert advice: Let Atlassian experts or companies like XALT advise you on successful implementation and overcoming challenges.

7. scaling:

Expand: Expand the implementation to other departments or teams once you have familiarized yourself with the playbooks to achieve a company-wide improvement.

8. measure success:

Metrics: Establish metrics to measure the success and impact of implementing Atlassian Team Playbooks, such as improved communication, shorter project timelines, and improved collaboration.

Image of a smartphone or tablet displaying a responsive intranet surrounded by images of employees collaborating on projects, an IT administrator monitoring security, and a graphic showing improved productivity.

Advantages of a responsive intranet for your company

by with No Comment Atlassian

In today's increasingly mobile world, it's more important than ever for businesses to have a responsive intranet that they can access from any device. A responsive intranet is one that automatically adjusts its layout to the user's screen size, making it easy to use on smartphones, tablets, and desktop computers.

Here are just some of the benefits that a responsive intranet can offer your company

Improved productivity

A responsive intranet enables employees to access important information and documents from anywhere, anytime. This means they can work more efficiently and get more done in less time. For example, they can quickly find the information they need to complete a task or collaborate with other team members on a project without being tied to a specific location or device.

This can also be easily implemented, for example, with an integrated search function. The advantage, as described above, is that content can also be accessed regardless of location (e.g. during customer appointments).

Furthermore, a (mobile available) intranet offers the possibility to personalize the seen content to the respective user (e.g. based on profile information).

Improved collaboration

A responsive intranet allows all employees to share documents and collaborate even when they are not on site. This can improve communication and collaboration within your team. For example, team members can share the progress of a project or provide feedback on a document via the intranet's built-in collaboration tools (e.g. links to the corporate wiki such as Confluence). This helps ensure that everyone is on the same page and projects can be completed on time.

Better usability

A responsive intranet provides a seamless user experience across all devices. For example, employees can access the intranet via a smartphone without worrying about compatibility issues or difficulties navigating the website. This makes the intranet more user-friendly and easier to use, which increases adoption and ultimately simplifies usage.

Increased security

A responsive intranet can improve the security of your company's information. By making it easy for your employees to access information from any device, you reduce the risk of sensitive data falling into the wrong hands.

For example, employees can log in to the intranet with two-factor authentication, which can prevent unauthorized access to your company's data. You can also configure the intranet to automatically log users out after a certain period of inactivity to prevent others from accessing the site if an employee leaves their device unattended.

Lower IT costs

A responsive intranet can reduce your company's IT costs. Using a single website that works on all devices eliminates the need for multiple versions of your intranet, saving you time and money. You don't have to maintain separate versions of the intranet for different devices, so your IT team can focus on other important tasks. In addition, you can use the intranet to consolidate different systems and applications, reducing the need for multiple licenses and subscriptions and saving your company money.

Learn more about corporate or social intranets here: Corporate intranet

Summary

In summary, a responsive intranet can provide your business with a number of benefits. Improving productivity, collaboration and security can help your business stay competitive in today's fast-paced digital world. In addition, a responsive intranet provides a seamless user experience across all devices and helps reduce IT costs so your company can thrive in the modern business world.

Remote Work with Confluence and Jira

How to manage remote teams with Jira and Confluence

by with No Comment Atlassian

The world of work is in a state of flux in 2021. New technologies such as Jira and Confluence enable teams to collaborate remotely and handle projects across large distances. In addition, flexible working hours, work-life balance and flexibility are increasingly prioritized. 

Covid-19 has further amplified this trend and made remote work the new focus for the corporate world. Along with this, it has become even more important that teams can collaborate more easily and projects can be managed regardless of where they are working. 

"Over 1/3 of workers say they would leave their current employer for more flexibility and home office."

Bitkom

Collaboration of and with remote teams

The question many companies are asking themselves now is, "how do I enable my team and external collaborators to work together productively and efficiently?" This is, of course, a question that cannot be answered easily and simply like that. Every company and team has adopted certain workflows, defined their project management and developed internal communication.

What are the advantages of location-independent working

So, switching to remote work comes with some challenges. In addition, there are some advantages and disadvantages to consider and analyze.

  • There is a real shortage of skilled workers in Germany. Especially in the IT industry, well-trained employees and specialists are often only available abroad. Location-independent job offers are often the only way to find suitable specialists.
  • Remote work makes you happier and more productive. No long travel times and stressful presence times offer your employees more freedom.
  • Cost savings by using smaller office space. (Just a small benefit on top, of course).

What challenges does "remote work" bring?

Of course, location-independent working is not the holy grail for making your company fit for the future. Rather, there are a number of challenges that need to be solved first:

  • How can we ensure that projects, tasks and goals are achieved?
  • Lack of personal contact can cause communication on your team to suffer.
  • Remote vs. on-site. Some of your employees may prefer to come into the office.
  • Different time zones can make collaboration difficult.
  • Developers in different countries often have different skills, methods and approaches, yet they all have to work together somehow.
  • When dealing with sensitive company data, location-independent working can also lead to legal hurdles.
  • Team meetings need to be adapted to the new environment and time availability.

Easy project management of your remote teams with Jira and Confluence

Location-independent working doesn't just mean that your teams can work from anywhere in the world from now on. Before that, you first have to create work structures that make this possible. In addition to a fast Internet and an equipped home office, this also includes the right tools for collaboration. 

Jira software from Atlassian is perfectly suited for project management. Confluence on the other hand is the perfect tool to document projects. Both tools in combination are like eggs & bacon, Simon & Garfunkel or Tintin - individually very good, but together just great!

Jira Software - Project Management Made Easy

On large projects, several internal (and external) teams (also remote) often work on different tasks. Therefore, the project is usually broken down into smaller components. In such cases, clear project communication must be guaranteed. 

A unified area that manages all tasks solves the problem comprehensively. Your team members can view the status of tasks, managers can monitor overall project progress, create and assign new tasks to members, specify deadlines, and estimate delivery dates.

With Jira, that's exactly what you can do. You can view the project progress at any time, monitor ticket and task statuses, and support your team at any time in case of problems. In addition, Jira creates the necessary transparency within the project. Every (external) team member has access to the same information without having to contact the task owner. With this feature, individual tasks can be processed more efficiently and productively.

Easy collaboration of (remote) team with Jira and Confluence

Efficient management of your project team with Jira

With Jira, it's almost impossible for your team to forget individual tasks or tickets. Whenever you - for example - create a new ticket, the team gets the Assignee a notification via email (or Slack). If you add comments, attachments, or change the status of the task, another notification is sent out to the people involved.

In addition, the individual tasks are mapped on a Kanban board at any time. This allows project managers to keep an eye on the status of the entire project at all times. This makes it easy to generate reports and document the progress of the project.

Confluence: A knowledgebase for your entire team

In order to handle projects efficiently, it is important that every team member (remote and on-site) has access to a detailed knowledge base.

Confluence is suitable for this. With this, Atlassian has provided a kind of Wikipedia on steroids for companies with this app. You can use it to share project information with all team members. With Confluence, you can create project spaces (for example, for a project about homepage redesign) and further subdivide them using more subpages. You can directly upload and share important files with your team, exchange ideas, and edit pages in real time with multiple team members. 

Additionally, you can customize Confluence to your liking and extend it with plugins far beyond its standard features. 

Learn more about how to customize Confluence here: Personalization of Confluence.

Customer communication with Jira and Confluence

In addition to collaborating with internal and external remote teams, you can also use Jira and Confluence to communicate with your customers. For example, you can create project spaces that can only be edited and viewed by the project team. This ensures that all other sensitive company data is protected. Furthermore, Spaces offer the option that your customers can record important information directly in their designated Space.

Furthermore, Confluence facilitates the structuring and provision of project files and thus enables even more efficient and productive collaboration.

Summary - Management of Remote Teams with Jira and Confluence

With the help of digitalized project management and documentation tools, every team can work location-independently. Productivity and fun at work is also increased. Jira and Confluence help you improve the collaboration of your internal, external and remote teams. Where the individual employees are located in the world no longer plays a role. 

Do you need support integrating Confluence or Jira into your company and team? As an Atlassian Gold Solution Partner, we'll be happy to advise you on the integration. Go to Atlassian Services you will learn more about our approach and methodology.