You’ve told us you’re frustrated because we’re often not communicating well enough, responding to conversations or comment, or keeping you up-to-date with product release changes or roadmaps.
We receive lots of feedback from you here in Community and also across our other communications channels such as Support, JAC and through social media. Thank you for taking the time to provide us with feedback. We really value your inputs - and one of the pieces of feedback we’ve heard loud and clear is that it’s difficult to know where to send your feedback to make yourself heard.
Making feedback work for everyone requires collaboration, vision, and pushing the boundaries of what's possible. We know things need to change and to do this we need your help.
Tell us more about:
How do you feel about the way Atlassian manages your feedback?
What are your thoughts and ideas on how Atlassian could better work with you to improve products?
Can you share an example of when your feedback was heard and you felt listened to by a company (Atlassian or otherwise)?
Next steps
We’ll be actively monitoring activity on this post and gathering feedback until 23 June and will provide an update on the progress of this stream of work.
We're looking forward to the discussion, The Customer Feedback Experience Team
Hi Caroline and Zoe,
Thank you for the intentional reach out on this. I have been praying and thinking through the appropriate response, and I guess my comments are more about how Atlassian handles the support process than the actual feedback management. If you handle support in a great manner, the feedback management kind of takes care of itself to a large degree.
Having said that, here are my thoughts.
Atlassian has an internal method of handling requests and making decisions on what items/features/improvements, etc. are rolled out and in what order. Obviously, each product has a roadmap. And Atlassian shares that philosophy quite freely. The problem is that the philosophy is very vague to end users, even if Atlassian feels it’s very detailed to you. Saying that there are numerous sources of requests and things to take into consideration when deciding which items to do might feel like you have your bases covered. But what the end user hears is “we can’t really give you objective answers to what we do when and you’re not really privy to that decision making, nor do you really have much influence there.” I know that is not your intent, but for me, that’s how it comes across.
To delve into that a little more as an example, there is the JAC. You receive and post hundreds if not thousands of suggestions/feature requests/bugs/defects, etc. But then it’s communicated out something to the effect of “but that’s only one source and one thing we consider when deciding what we are going to do.” But to the end user, the JAC is main avenue for requesting changes and improvements. Atlassian might have many other sources and method to their madness, but this is the single most tangible thing a user feels that he/she can do to influence what work gets done. And I don’t think I am far off, if at all, about that being the end user’s mentality.
So when items in the JAC get ignored – some for years and some for hundreds of votes – the end user gets extremely frustrated. I use the word ignore on purpose because that’s how the end user feels. Again, probably not the Atlassian intent, but that’s how it comes across. The users post additional comments fueling anger and descension . Which breeds more of the same. And few times, if ever, does anyone from Atlassian respond to the thread. See my links to just a handful of those types of issues in the other thread/post.
To step away from the negative for a minute, Matt Tse has probably done the best at feedback with his updates and responses to comments in https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-73180 for the New Navigation. He didn’t always have great news for some of what the people wanted, but he always addressed them and provided updates along the way. John McKiernan and the good folks with Automation for Jira have done the same. Just the fact that I know these people’s names tell you that they are good with feedback. Jason Wong has done a very good job with Next-gen information as well, though he is a little bit slower to respond to posts.
Now all of those are big initiatives and need that focus and communication. But it’s the on-going day-to-day bugs and requests that seem to get left behind in the wake of the large projects. And little or no feedback happens on those items.
As I have often heard, “don’t just complain without providing some recommendations/solutions”. So, here are some of mine. Please take them as such – suggestions, not demands. 😊
There might be more things later that come to mind. But if you just did those I can’t even imagine the impact and goodwill you would create.
Thanks for listening! Thanks for the opportunity to voice concerns!! If I missed the mark, let me know – it’s okay. 😊 To be honest, I have sometimes responded in frustration in the past myself, and I apologize sincerely for those times. I had to do such an apology to John McKiernan in an email shortly after I first met him. But he was gracious and kind and forgiving.
I look forward to comments from others and their feedback as well. Thanks one more time for all that you do to support us and for an already great product that you provide!
Maybe take a look at the community posts and take a stab at some of the bug reported there? I've posted two now. The first was broken in 2015 the second just a few days ago. Perhaps 5 years later I can look back on this post and wonder why we ever stayed with you guys.
Wow! Thank you, @John Funk ! That is an incredibly thought-provoking response. Thank you for taking the time to tell us!
You’re highly engaged in both JAC and Community. I’d love to know what you believe makes JAC the more tangible avenue for requesting feedback and changes, versus Community?
You’re absolutely right when you mention Atlassian needs to get better at sharing decisions, especially those that may be unpopular. I’d love to know what in your opinion is a good way to deliver bad news such as the decision that we won’t be going ahead with a popular suggestion?
We’d love to hear from others in the Community too. Is your experience similar to John’s?
The point of this thread is to change atlassian's attitude toward the customer. Not this customer.
However:
No, I do not see that being the point of the thread at all. Atlassian actually created the thread to receive feedback. Thank you for sharing one of the posts.
The other bug was a dashboard widget that doesn't work. I think perhaps you folks have deleted it. I no longer see it. so +1 there
Personally, I don't think that Community posts are very quantifiable as to the real demand/need for a feature. You certainly don't want 1,000 posts on the same subject. And as a user myself, I am not going to post another comment that says the same as whatever some (maybe several) people have already said. But I will click on a vote button in a heartbeat if it's something I need or would like to have.
It might be a little bit of human nature maybe also. Many (Most?) of us are trained in countries that we should vote - for people, amendments, referendums, etc. It's a way for our voice to be heard. Only a tiny fraction of people who vote ever attend rallies or townhalls or write a politician. I think that caries over to the Community as well.
So you don't want a small number or loud/noisy people running what should be done. Community Posts, small group product surveys, webinars, etc. are excellent means to receive feedback. But to me, they will always be overshadowed by the ability of the masses to vote. That's just my preference. I know several product managers that approach that differently.
Most companies do not provide a direct medium to vote on their products like Atlassian has done with JAC. So definitely kudos for that. But I don't know that I really see that any differently from companies sending out surveys or taking polls. All of those (like JAC) should help you narrow your focus to what customers want in general. Then deep dive with groups to further define that and do POCs, trials, etc.
But I have also seen MANY product managers start with an idea they have and then gather focus groups to to simply validate what they want. Even if that takes dozens of attempts until someone says "I like that". Then they say "SEE! The people want it!"
That's a lot of rambling. But imagine if you let people vote, and they said "We want THIS candidate!" And then the government said, "Well, that's nice, but we did a focus group and we think this other person is better for you." That's basically the message that is being sent about JAC in my view. And I think all of the angry comments on issues in the JAC confirm that.
I sure wish other leaders would chime in here - one way or the other! It won't hurt my feelings, but Atlassian needs to hear from someone other than me! :-)
Hi Caroline,
@John Funk did an absolutely incredible job of summing up how many of us feel about Atlassian's prioritization of the road map.
I've been a Jira administrator since 2008 and was actually part of very early interviews on how to craft Jira Service Desk.
In the early days I was thrilled to be able to go into JAC, enter my vote and think that it counted and that it would get addressed. I was also thrilled when it seemed that some of my JSD ideas were getting implemented.
But the illusion wore off 5 years ago. I have had numerous focus calls with JSD, Jira product but I feel they go nowhere. No matter how many times I say a highly voted JAC feature would be critical to us and many, many others, it seems to fall on deaf ears.
Instead we get another reformat of the screens, another "lipstick on the pig" release. I'm pretty sure I've NEVER seen a JAC request that says redesign the UI, or move this field to the top and this one to the side OR make the colors pretty or the status blocked.
I sometimes get the feeling that the development team just like to do "pretty work" and are allowed to supported by an inflated UI design team.
I have no idea who the product team is talking to that are getting priortizations that supersede the highly voted JAC list. I'd be really interested to know.
I would like to hear a breakdown from a product leader on how they make their decisions for the roadmap. I have asked and they have said that JAC was only 1 part, but then were vague about the other sources.
I agree with John, trolling the community is not the place to get the roadmap ideas. I really, really think JAC needs to play the main role in setting the roadmap. And if there are other ideas that the product managers are picking up, then log them into JAC. See how many votes they get. Bet they won't get nearly as many.
@John Funk all your other ideas are great too. WOnder if anyone is going to listen?
Susan
So finally jumping in here. Let me start by seconding much of what John and Susan have already conveyed but let me add my own voice here.
With that said...
First, it is worth noting that I have been involved in quite a few sessions w/ PM and research groups as well as a session with MCB and a couple of the POs. For this I am truly grateful and for the most part I feel that my voice is heard. The one key thing that is missing for me is closure. That small but oh so critical part of communication that does so much to finalize the feedback. "Hey you asked for xxx and here it is" or "We looked into this issue but it isn't aligned w/ our strategy." Often I do see something that was released that has me thinking "OK that seems to be aligned w/ my feedback.", but that is working on assumptions.
Solutions?
IMO, the concept of JAC is sound but the execution is fundamentally flawed. The concept of voting and watching is fundamental to Jira and how it fits into product management. Yet it seems to be failing right on its own front porch. Atlassian has evolved JAC attempting to improve how it is used and how it conveys where things stand with an issue, e.g. clear workflow statuses. However, there are so many old issues that it is hard to see the forest for the trees. It seems to me that too much is let in the back door. There should be an initial Triage/Assessment status and the PMs must be accountable for immediately (<=5d) assessing if it should even be considered "at this time". Maybe a year from now another request comes in and it makes sense but not today. This would keep down the noise and hopefully allow Atlassian to actively engage in the ones that are important to the business. Let me acknowledge that while I love the idea of transparency on suggestions and bugs I have never been apart of a company where this worked well. So in the end, if it isn't working and it can't be made to work then remove it. Don't let it simply sit there as an empty promise.
What I would like to see is more working group sessions with key Community leaders, POs and PMs with specific agendas. Maybe even discussing some of the JAC issues specifically focused on key issues. Of course if this is done then there must be followup and closure on all open issues.
I hope there is something in here that is helpful. I love Atlassian products and want them to continue to improve.
/me draws a very deep breath. Then releases most of it as "What John said, and the supporting stuff from Susan and Jack".
About five years ago, there was an Atlassian blog on how features, bugs, stories and the rest were drawn into the products. This was a great thing because it explained how Atlassian were thinking about it all at the time, but it also failed because it pretty much confirmed that most customers only really had the route of JAC, which was at the bottom of the list of channels.
JAC is heavily flawed - mostly because it looks unloved and ignored. In fact, Atlassian ignoring JAC could easily be the main reason people regularly post that they feel ignored and voiceless - when that question comes up, a lot of the time, the answer is "Raise it or vote on it in JAC" and because Atlassian ignore it, it feels utterly useless.
I think the best answer here is "pay a lot more attention to JAC". It could be a great way to get feedback.
So, what I would do:
And the ranty/shouty but TLDR bit:
The worst thing that was done to JAC was the activity of suddenly cloning tickets for Cloud offering including date created, comments, votes, etc, .. !!
https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRASERVER-63150
https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-63150
So all the feedback that "I want a feature caled XYZ" that had hundred of votes and for server customers suddenly was cloned automatically as a need for Cloud (even that cloud needs were at the beginning a much different and we are no longer able to just track progress on "XYZ feature" as a thing that would be implemented in Jira (no matter which offering).
On the JAC ticket there should be simple information that this exist for Cloud not Server but we should track this somehow in one ticker or in a totally different view that is clean and easy to read.
Now to be honest it is a mess.. Another "bad" example of handling feedback is this:
https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRASERVER-5783
https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-5783
The customer/business need is to "Make field required only for one state transition".. People want this for Server (ticket created in 2005 when Cloud do not exist yet!).. Ticket get cloned with comments, votes etc. .. later in 2016 on Cloud it gets implemented as a native feature in Jira when the 3rd party plugin is not longer FREE .. Server customers get at the end information "to use paid extension - Jira Suite Utilities" event that same plugin existed also for Jira Cloud, so the decision to not implement this should be the same for both platforms.. It should be aligned.
Instead we get an update almost in 2018 (so after it was implemented for Cloud as native feature)
We belive Suite Utilities for Jira deliveres great value to our customers and the plugin has proven to do it's job well. This is why we currently have no plans to implements JSU's finctionalities in the core product.
In addition the "server" ticket automatically get Resolved with "Won't Fix", so people not longer even have hope that this feature would be implemented for Server.. What is funny the Cloud tickets still remains open!.. This is some kind of ridiculous way of handing "the need for XYZ feature".
The Atlassian value is Do not *** the customer, but after that they are actually angry that a ticket for server exist from 2005.. then Cloud come in to the stage and it gets implemented after a year when plugin is no longer free.. and for Server you can go ahead and buy a third party extension and we cannot do anything about that..
So of course we can discus here HOW we can improve the way of gathering feedback, but I think that someone first need to learn how customers feel when they actually take an effort and give that feedback or really want something..
How someone would feel if he voted on this ticket 10-15 years ago hoping that it would be someday implemented and in 2017 (hoping even harder since feature is available on Cloud already) Instead they get a punch with a message go an buy a plugin..
And that is why the last comment (on the server tickets is like that):
This is a basic part of TFS bug tracker functionality since 2005. It's even supported in Jira Cloud! Why do SERVER users have to pay extra for it? It should be part of the base feature package. Please re-open.
And of course nobody would respond to this single questions/feedback. This is what definitively need to be improved..
Of course Community is a good way of gathering feedback also but many times at the end if the need is technical and a feature is not implemented we refer to JAC and ask to vote and watch.. If JAC would not be a good source of information and official communication with customers then we all would get lost in all those offerings guessing what is currently implemented, where and when it would be implemented. People keep asking for that "update" all the time...
In summary and to give a TL/DR: I'm a huge supporter of Atlassian's customer orientation. I think they are doing amazing work and really addressing many of the needs of their customers. There are times I twitch at certain things in the product that seem like they should have been addressed years ago that seem simple, but overall, their entire suite of products are where they are for a reason. They have dwarfed their competition over the years for a reason. That reason is that their product aligns better with the needs of their customer better than any other solution out there, some people may have just lost sight of that. When you're a customer of Atlassian products as long as I have been, you experienced unimaginable growth and ground-breaking achievements at Atlassian overtook their competition. Now that they are so far on top, it's really challenging to feel as upward of a trajectory, but they're still crushing it. Keep it going and let the whole world know!
Thanks for taking the time to read all this, hopefully it's helpful :-)
And sorry for delay in getting this to you, I had some technical difficulties trying to post this yesterday and it didn't work for me till today.
Thanks @John Funk , we definitely don't see your responses as "rambling" :) and we highly appreciate the time you spend on this thread. I can assure you that we (the team) is reading each word enthusiastically.
When you say:
Most companies do not provide a direct medium to vote on their products like Atlassian has done with JAC. So definitely kudos for that. But I don't know that I really see that any differently from companies sending out surveys or taking polls.
Could you please elaborate a bit on this? What does make it the same or different?
Hey @Susan Hauth _Jira Queen_ thank you very much for your response. I can assure you that we are listening. We hear the frustration and our goal with this conversation is to understand where it is coming from and what you would like to see happening differently to change this sentiment.
When you say:
I would like to hear a breakdown from a product leader on how they make their decisions for the roadmap. I have asked and they have said that JAC was only 1 part, but then were vague about the other sources.
We’d love to know a bit more about why this would be important to you, Susan? 🙂
Thanks Jack!
What I would like to see is more working group sessions with key Community leaders, POs and PMs with specific agendas. Maybe even discussing some of the JAC issues specifically focused on key issues. Of course if this is done then there must be followup and closure on all open issues.
What is about the working groups that feel valuable to you? We’d love to know more so we could share the value to the broader Community and Atlassian user base.
Thanks @Russell Zera 💙 that you’re thinking of how to make these things visible to other users who might not have the same level of contact with Atlassian that you have. There are a lot of fantastic ideas in there. Which one do you think would have the biggest impact for all users?
@Mirek completely agree that JAC is causing a lot of pain right now. It’s great to understand the issues you currently have.
Looking towards the future, how do you see us working together to innovate and improve Atlassian products? Is fixing JAC the silver bullet? Or will it take more?
😆 Ditto Ditto Ditto @Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
I’m interested in why you feel like customers only real option to help shape Atlassian products is through JAC. Was it that blog article that gave you that impression? Or is it from your own experience?
Since I've been an Atlassian user, I was consistently asked to use JAC to report everything. Since that blog 5-6 years ago explained all the routes customers had at the time, it pretty much said "JAC is the only one available to most". Atlassian have gone through phases of monitoring community and raising things drawn from it, but the route there was for them to add it to JAC themselves.
Other routes were TAMs (i.e. large customers), knowing Atlassians directly or getting partners or leaders to talk on your behalf, raising support requests (not a lot of use as a voice as no-one else gets to see them) and that things like strategic direction and demand from large customers were always far more important. For most Jira users, there's no apparent route that might appear to have any effect on what matters to them. JAC routinely ignored and the other routes invisible or silent.
Although I've said JAC a lot there, if there would be a better route for general visibility and weight, great. I've said JAC because you have a wealth of history, voting, and it already could support visibility and weight. It just needs to not be ignored by Atlassian. That goes for any other system you might implement.
Hi Caroline,
This would be important to everyone to understand the areas of influence in the roadmap decision making. Is it from internal sources? From enterprise clients? From platinum partners? Since I don't think Atlassian is getting it quite right, wondering where the other influences are coming from and how those may require reshaping. JAC is the only visible, public voting forum and so wondering what the non-public influencers are and how those might be made more public and open to voting.
Susan
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