Welcome back to our series! We're so glad you're here. I’m an Instructional Designer on the Community Team, and in today's post, I’ll detail how a year-long rebuild transformed our live team training experience into something more flexible, engaging, and hands-on.
The scene: We kept running into the same problem
Our live team training historically followed the traditional format: full or multi-day, lecture-heavy courses delivered in a single fixed block. For many teams, this model works. For example, a group of new admins genuinely needs the full curriculum, end to end. But plenty of situations don’t look like that: some teams only need a specific topic to support a change, others want deep dives that address their specific pain points, and some who do want the full course simply can't take an entire team offline for two straight days.
Because our hands-on labs were built sequentially, skipping or isolating a section broke the exercises that followed. That made our courses notoriously hard to adapt (something we heard frequently from instructors and customers).
To fix the problem, we started out simple: we decided to build our courses out of smaller, more flexible pieces. But we soon realized we couldn't stop with scheduling.
We decided to rebuild the live learning experience from the ground up
When we sat down to turn our lengthy live learning courses into smaller, more flexible pieces, we quickly realized it would only solve the scheduling problem. The classroom experience would be the same. And if teams are pulling people away from their day jobs to attend a training, every minute needs to count.
So we rebuilt the experience using adult learning research and modern learner expectations as our guides. That meant rethinking how we design and structure courses, what active learning actually looks like, and what participants should be able to do when they return to work.
That turned into a year-long rebuild of our entire live learning library. Here’s what’s changed…
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Courses are now built around what you need to do
We’ve always built courses with customers in mind, but what has changed is how deliberately that is wired into our design process from the very beginning.
Every new course starts with in-depth research into what customers are actually doing with the products and where they tend to get stuck. Then we build around those skills and behaviors you need on the job, prioritizing practical application over exhaustive topic coverage.
New courses spend less time on extraneous things you could look up, and more on what you need to solve real problems.
Built to flex around your team
Every course is now made up of a set of short, self-contained modules covering a specific topic. Most importantly, the labs no longer depend on exercises from earlier in the course, making it possible to skip around without anything breaking.
The courses themselves are still substantial. We didn’t shrink the curriculum when we created smaller pieces, we changed the structure underneath. Because a course isn’t one fixed block anymore, it can easily be run across several shorter sessions over days or weeks if that’s what the team prefers.
The new modular structure gives teams options:
- Take a course as it comes (which is what many teams will do)
- Skip the modules covering topics your team is already familiar with
- Work with a training partner to build something tailored to their unique needs
You’ll spend more of your time doing
Adults learn best by doing, so active learning is at the core of our redesigned courses. Rather than sitting through long stretches of passive lecture, the majority of your class time is spent hands-on: exploring real workflows in the product, working through realistic scenarios, troubleshooting issues, or answering critical thinking questions.
When we do present, it’s through a combination of slides and live product demos focused on the why, not just where to click. We know that when you understand the underlying concept, you can better apply it to your own situation.
We’ve also structured each session so engagement starts early and recurs often, ensuring you can apply concepts as you learn them instead of waiting until the end of a section.
It looks and feels different, too
You'll also notice fewer words on screen, more diagrams and purposeful visuals, and slides that transition often to prevent boredom.
Our design standards are grounded in research on how people best take in and retain information. For example, cognitive load research tells us a dense block of text on a slide competes with the person speaking, whereas a clear diagram or image supports their message. Attention research informed our decision to keep slides brief and focused, and regularly change what’s on screen. Individually these are small choices, but across a multi-hour class, they add up to a more valuable learning experience.
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An example new slide: meaningful images instead of big text blocks. | An example old slide: text-heavy with decorative graphics. |
Our new live learning offerings
In 12 months we designed 17 new courses totaling over 72 hours of content, all built to the same standard. Some replace courses you may have taken before. Several are brand new, including live training for Confluence, Rovo, and Jira Service Management administration.
There's been an unexpected bonus, too. Because each module can stand on its own, we can offer it on its own. This means the same content now reaches more people in more places. Modules have run as learning sessions at Team and Team Europe events, and we’ve even added them to the free Community Public Calendar.
Here’s how to try one of our all-new live learning courses
You can find the courses we’ve updated in the team training catalog, including Onboard to Jira Cloud and Jira app administration, and stay tuned as we continue to update! Courses are delivered live, virtually, or in person. Each course page describes what your team will be able to do by the end of it.
And if your team’s situation doesn't line up neatly with any specific course, that's a good conversation to have with a training partner.
We want to hear from you
Tell us in the comments: what’s one thing that made a live training session genuinely worth your time (or one thing that made you wish you’d skipped it)?
Keep an eye out for more "Atlassian Community: Behind the scenes" posts. 🌱
Read the whole series
