There's no place like (Atlassian) Home 👠

Peggy Graham

When you think about it, Dorothy didn’t really have it that bad… I mean, yeah, there was a rather scary witch stalking her, the forest was inhabited by talking lions, among other things (and the flying monkeys were quite creepy, IMHO 😬). But, Dorothy did have two things going for her:

1. A clear goal: get back to Kansas
2. A clear path to get there: follow the yellow brick road

So long as she stayed on that path, she was pretty much assured of the outcome.

Oftentimes, the rest of us aren't as lucky as Dorothy. Our path can feel more like a maze than a yellow brick road. We don’t know which way to go, and sometimes we aren’t even sure of our destination.

That brings up this philosophical question: Are you really lost if you don’t know where you’re going? 🤔

While you ponder that one, let’s imagine that, in additional to technicolor, Dorothy got access to Atlassian tools when she stepped into the Land of Oz.

I refer to Atlassian Home throughout this article. Atlassian Home was previously known as Atlas, so when searching for documentation, most articles will still be under that name. You may also see Platform Experiences, which is what we’ve been calling the new beta. Just know that: Atlas = Platform Experiences = Atlassian Home Got it? Great, let’s press on!

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Goal: Return to Kansas

Dorothy knew her goal as soon as she saw Oz: get back to Kansas. She knew there'd be a lot of steps to get there, so she took a moment to capture the key details in Atlassian Home.

• Goal: [O] Return to Kansas
• Target date: August 1939
• Status: At Risk
• Owner: Dorothy, of course!

💡 Pro tip: Dorothy used an [O] in the goal name to indicate that it's an objective. Consider having a naming convention for significant indicators, such as goal level, e.g., [O] for Objective / [KR] for Key Result

Let's check out Dorothy's goal before she hit the yellow brick road: 

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Watch the video ↗️

Okay Peggy, but why should I use goals?  Atlassian goals aim to solve a common challenge for many teams: communication. By keeping goal details like status, progress updates, and risks in one place, you create visibility for your whole team.  Imagine if Dorothy made frequent stops to hold status update meetings with Toto! They wouldn't have made it far on the yellow brick road (especially with those poppy fields 👀).  This article goes more in depth about goals and how to create them. If you need more inspiration, here's a guide, a blog, and a playbook to help you write better goals.

Now that Dorothy's goal is in Atlassian Home, she's following the yellow brick road - Toto safely in hand! 🐕

...But now her goal feels overwhelming. 😵‍💫 How exactly is she supposed to get back to Kansas? That’s where sub-goals come in!

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Sub-goal: Get to the Emerald City 

Sub-goals are functionally the same as a goal in Atlassian Home, they just nest under a larger goal. It’s always easier to tackle a large job by breaking things down into smaller, more achievable goals. 

For Dorothy, she knows she at least needs to get to the Emerald City. So she broke down the trip into smaller steps by adding these sub-goals to her original goal:

• Goal: [O] Return to Kansas
  • Sub-goal: Munchkin City → Farm country
  • Sub-goal: Farm country → Forest
  • Sub-goal: Forest → Emerald City

Now Dorothy can complete the smaller sub-goals that help her get back to Kansas. She can also associate Jira issues that contribute to each sub-goal - but hang tight, we'll come back to that. 😎

For now, she's off to see the wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz!

As she made her way to the Emerald City, Dorothy met some new friends who needed her help. So she decided to set a new goal: to help her new friends and leave Oz just a bit better than she found it.

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New Goal: Help new friends and leave Oz a better place

This new goal was slightly more complicated, with several key deliverables (I prefer the term "quests", but that's just me 😜).

So Dorothy created a few projects in Atlassian Home to capture the quests - er, deliverables - needed to achieve this broader goal. 

• New Goal: [O] Help new friends and leave Oz a better place
  • Project: Get the wicked witch's broomstick
  • Project: Lion needs courage
  • Project: Tin Man needs a heart
  • Project: Scarecrow needs a brain

Wait, what's the difference between goals/projects in Atlassian Home and Jira projects? 🤔 Atlassian Home goal: A strategic, long-term outcome for the business. Goal owner prompted to provide updates monthly.  Atlassian Home project: A clear, medium-term deliverable with a timeline. Can include work from one or more Jira projects, as well as multiple teams using different tools. Project owner prompted to provide updates weekly.  Jira project: An ongoing team workspace to organize and track tasks. Great way to track the shorter-term tasks involved in achieving Atlassian Home projects and goals.  Another way to think about it: Goals and projects in Atlassian Home will eventually be complete; Jira projects are generally ongoing as the team moves on to new Atlassian Home projects and goals. Please see: The relationship between projects & goals to learn more.

Okay, Dorothy and her merry cohort are well on their way now! She knows her goals. She's broken them down into sub-goals and projects. Now, she needs to determine the actual work she needs to do to achieve her goals.

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Turning Dorothy's goals into actions

Fortunately, Dorothy never goes anywhere without her trusty laptop, so she can start assigning stories in Jira to everyone.

• Goal: [O] Return to Kansas
  
  • ✨ Story: Meet with the Wizard
  • Sub-goal: Munchkin City → Farm country 
    • ✨ Story: Get scarecrow down from his pole
  • Sub-goal: Farm country → Forest
    • ✨ Story: Add oil to rusty tin man
  • Sub-goal: Forest → Emerald City
    • ✨ Story: Scold scary lion so he backs off

💡 Pro tip: A story can contribute directly to the highest-level goal, while other stories contribute to a sub-goal.

• Goal: [O] Help new friends and leave Oz a better place 
  • Project: Get the wicked witch's broomstick
  • Project: Lion needs courage
  • Project: Tin Man needs a heart
  • Project: Scarecrow needs a brain
  • ✨ Story: The people of Oz want to be safe from the Witch
  • ✨ Epic: Help friends we've met along the way
    • ✨ Story: The Scarecrow wants a brain
    • ✨ Story: The tin man wants a heart
    • ✨ Story: The lion wants courage

You might notice that there's a Jira story for each of the Atlassian Home projects. I know your work is much more complex than Dorothy's adventure, so your Atlassian Home projects will likely have multiple contributing Jira epics and stories - as well as work being tracked in other tools.

Those Jira epics and stories will help her friends stay on track! Now that she's connected the Jira issues to her goals, let's check in on Dorothy's progress: 

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Watch the video ↗️

Once Dorothy mapped out her goals and the work to get there, what’s left? Now she just needs to put one ruby slipper in front of the other and keep heading down the yellow brick road. She'll make it back to Kansas in no time! 🌪️

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Cute story, Peggy! 🤩 ...But what does this mean for me? We covered a lot in Dorothy's adventure. We learned that you can have multiple levels of goals and projects in Atlassian Home, which can then link to Jira and other tools. This allows goals to scale from startups to large, complex organizations. But, that doesn't mean you have to use all those levels in your setup. Try it out, and do what fits. Before you know it, you'll be the one saying: "There's no place like (Atlassian) Home!"

Peggy Graham

Thanks for reading all the way to the end! I hope this article helped you better understand Atlassian Home... or at least entertained you for a bit!