How can I best utilise Confluence Whiteboards for remote team collaboration?

[Chrissy Clements]

Hi everyone,

I'm exploring the use of Confluence Whiteboards to enhance collaboration within my remote team. I'd love to hear how others are utilising this tool effectively.

• What are some best practices for setting up and organising whiteboards for team projects?
• How do you integrate Confluence Whiteboards with other Confluence features and Jira?
• Are there any tips for ensuring that all team members can contribute and engage during whiteboard sessions?
• What are some creative ways you've used Whiteboards to improve productivity and communication?

Any insights or examples would be greatly appreciated!

[Dr Valeri Colon _Connect Centric_]

Great to hear you're exploring Confluence Whiteboards for your remote team! I've been using them and here are some tips and best practices that have worked well for me:

Setting Up and Organizing Whiteboards: I always start each whiteboard session with clear objectives. It’s helpful to define what you want to achieve and share this with your team beforehand. Using templates can save a lot of time.

Integrating with Confluence and Jira: I add Jira issues to the whiteboard to visualize and track tasks. You can create new issues right from the whiteboard or link existing ones, which really helps keep everyone on the same page.

Engaging Team Members: Getting everyone to participate can be a challenge, so I assign roles for each session, like a facilitator, note-taker, and timekeeper. This ensures everyone is involved and keeps things productive. I use regular check-ins and question prompts to keep the collaboration ongoing.

Creative Uses for Improved Productivity and Communication: I’ve found whiteboards to be great for brainstorming sessions, retrospectives and technical training. Mind mapping on whiteboards helps in planning and understanding complex topics better.

[Chrissy Clements]

Great tips!  Thanks, @Dr Valeri Colon _Connect Centric_ 

[Patrick Matthews]

I like Dr_Valeri Colon's idea how she assigns roles to different attendees, like time keeper, note taker, etc. This keeps everyone engaged and takes the load off of a single person.

I also find it very valuable...

Create custom templates that align with your organization: I find the pre-built templates in confluence are good, but not good enough for frictionless creative flow.

The 'Whiteboard' isn't the secret sauce:  As noted above, the biggest issue with collaboration sessions, in general, is that moderators don't conduct enough due diligence, prior to bringing folks together.  Be sure to make sure you're using the correct template, and that everyone has an objective / agenda for the session.

My Favorites:  SWOT, A3, Operating Strategy Canvas'; We've also built several templates where our management teams across marketing, sales and product can collaborate on content that is then exported into sales and marketing formats.