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How do you think the Atlassian suite make a difference to how work gets done in teams?

James Dellow

Today I'm posting not as a community member, but with my independent consultant hat on in the hope that you might be able to share some insights into how you are using the Atlassian suite of tools to work differently.

I'm researching the concept of "collaborative work management". If you haven't heard of it, don't worry. I'm learning about how products like those found in the Atlassian suite are helping teams of people to work in a way that is better than old command and control ways of working or are better suited to distributed teams. Some people are also talking about the idea of tools like this being your work operating system or "Work OS".

I'm particularly interested in cases where the Atlassian suite is being used widely across a business and not just by developers or IT.

If you want to know more about why am I doing this, I have posted something recently about this here https://chieftech.com.au/post/lets-talk-about-collaboration-workmanagement/

I would like to know more about how you think the Atlassian suite of tools - particularly JIRA, Trello, and also Confluence - makes a difference in how work gets done in teams.

Do you feel the Atlassian suite helps your team or the teams in your business to operate differently from those that don't use tools like Atlassian?
Thinking not about the features of the tools, but how you work using them, do you think that way of working can be applied to teams in any type or size organization or business?
Have you noticed the way teams are using the Atlassian suite is different now because of Covid-19?

All feedback is appreciated!

Comments

Hasna

Hi @James Dellow

Thanks for putting such wonderful topic into discussion .

You can ignore my comments if you feel its irrelevant .

Coming to you first question --

Do you feel the Atlassian suite helps your team or the teams in your business to operate differently from those that don't use tools like Atlassian?

Yes Completely .Atlassian Suite helps team to make there devops environment easy . They do not want to carry things and everything can be in one tool and all helping tool can be integrated as well .

I would rather say in nutshell that everything is available with JUST ONCLICK .

Easy and reliable.

2.Thinking not about the features of the tools, but how you work using them, do you think that way of working can be applied to teams in any type or size organization or business?

Yes , Size of the organization doesn't matter for Atlassian Suite , with the experience so far i have .

BUT another major issue and obstacle i noticed is the performance .

Performance is relatively is not as expected in larger environment .

Hasna

James Dellow

Thanks @Hasna - it sounds like you are talking from a DevOps perspective, which is an important area that Atlassian is focused on, but your feedback is appreciated.

I'm interested that you highlight integration and automation. It does appear to me that it's not enough to have a great tool for a team to use if it can only be used in isolation. I think that applies both to DevOps and other use cases.

I wonder if the performance issue is something that probably reflective of the hidden complexity in all the modern tools we use, as there are many moving parts that we need and expect to work well?

Samie Delebo - Your Gal at Gliffy

Wow, James. I read your article and the work you're doing on this is so interesting.

I'm taking several IT management courses as part of my MBA and we're touching on similar topics. That being said, I'm coming at this from more of a business/marketing side of things rather than a development point of view.

I think that when we first made a shift to working fully remotely, it was a little bit of a free-for-all in terms of who was using what tools and levels of understanding of those tools varied person-by-person. So in terms of how our team uses tools, I think it's absolutely changed because people have needed to actually dig in and learn more of the features. And, because of that higher level of understanding, I could see these tools being a more integral part of how our company works even when we go back to the office.

There also is sort of a balance between mandating that your teams use a certain set of tools and simply letting your employees find ways to solve a problem themselves. From a short-term "let's just get through this" perspective, letting people use whatever tool they can seems to make sense. If we weren't using Confluence, Jira, and Trello, I'm sure we'd find a way to make work still work! But because everyone at least had their foot in the door with these products, it seemed natural that a lot of the solutions to our new challenges would be figured out in those.

I don't mean to point fingers at anyone for being a luddite, but I think it's safe to say that working through a pandemic has forced people and teams to modernize in a way that will permanently impact how they work, whether they're distributed or not. In many cases, I think these practices would have been beneficial long before COVID-19, but getting a full organization to change or re-align around a new process or practice is just hard.

Will you be continuing to post about this here or should I keep an eye on the blog you linked to? I'd love to keep up with your work!

James Dellow

Thanks @Samie Delebo - Your Gal at Gliffy

I'll reply a bit later with some more comments, but if you would like to keep in touch about this research project, I can add you to my list of people interested?

Samie Delebo - Your Gal at Gliffy

Yes, please!

My University of Minnesota email is kaufm367@umn.edu. Is there any other info you'd want to have on hand?

James Dellow

Thanks again for your feedback. I'm interested in different perspectives, so definitely want to hear from people that have a business or marketing background.

I like your suggestion that necessity has forced people to learn more about the tools, and that this may make the more integral even if people eventually return to their offices. However, your last point about "getting a full organization to change or re-align around a new process or practice is just hard." is something I'm thinking a lot about - is the pandemic enough of a catalyst for widespread change?

In terms of the tools themselves, there is so much choice, and most offer integrations. Some are free, some not, some better than others, etc. But I do see two schools of thought: One is to be everything (the "work operating system"), while the other is to be part of the ecosystem of choice. Atlassian has the potential to be used either way, but it sounds like for you the idea of having a suite of tools available does sound better than a free for all?