Build your Atlassian Cloud rollout plan
Follow these proven steps to build an effective plan that drives adoption, reduces friction, and empowers your teams.On this page
- Introduction
- Step 1: Set your vision
- Step 2: Define success
- Step 3: Assemble your adoption team
- Step 4: Scope the rollout
- Step 5: Identify champions
- Step 6: Build your communications plan
- Step 7: Build your training and support plan
- Step 8: User acceptance testing
- Step 9: Ship it!
- Step 10: Monitor & engage
- Up next
Introduction
After years of observing and advising customers as they adopt Atlassian apps, we’ve identified clear patterns of what works well and turned those patterns into a set of concrete steps.
FastShift
The FastShift program is for existing customers migrating from Data Center to Cloud. It’s complimentary and included at no extra cost when you purchase a Cloud license for 1,000 users or more. Based on your organization’s size and complexity, participation in the program can reduce your migration timeline by 2x-3x! As a participant in FastShift, you’ll get a dedicated FastShift team of migration experts who offer high-touch program management services, technical support and change management support.
Step 1: Set your vision
Define a clear vision for your Atlassian portfolio to drive effective adoption. While streamlining workflows may be your primary goal, we recommend engaging with your teams during the migration to discover additional use cases and benefits.
Define key messages
Identify core themes for user communications:
- Organizational benefits and strategic value
- Team and individual advantages
- Usage guidelines and best practices
- Important calls to action
Vision-setting questions
- What are we trying to achieve with Atlassian Cloud?
- Why are we making this change?
- What specific benefits will adoption deliver?
- Who will be impacted and how?
Create a product playbook
Document your IT application inventory and outline how Atlassian apps should (and should not) be used alongside existing software. This serves as the foundation for usage guidelines and deployment goals.
Product playbook essentials
- Company-wide and team-specific processes
- Onboarding procedures for each product
- Project naming guidelines by use case
- Integration requirements with existing tools
Keep it current: Update your Product playbook when supporting new use cases or onboarding new teams. Reference it regularly to keep users informed.
TIP: Consider assembling your rollout team first, then collaborate on vision-setting. If team capacity is limited, draft the vision beforehand and use it as a baseline for input and buy-in from your rollout team.
Step 2: Define success
Establish what success looks like before rollout to ensure your adoption efforts stay focused and measurable. A strong measurement strategy helps you track progress, demonstrate value, and continuously improve.
Define success metrics
Identify what you’ll measure and why:
- Clear success criteria for Atlassian apps
- Measurable goals aligned with business priorities
- Metrics that capture organizational, team, and individual value
- User feedback mechanisms to track sentiment and needs
Supporting and improving
Build in ways to maintain momentum and adapt over time:
- Accessible support channels for users
- Regular sharing of success stories to highlight wins
- Review processes to address challenges and uncover new use cases
Sample metrics to consider
- CSAT: Gauge how satisfied teams are with the change
- Active usage: Track how often and where tools are used
- ROI: Track cost or time savings driven by adoption
TIP: Align adoption metrics directly to your use cases. This ensures every data point connects back to how teams are working and the value they’re creating.
Step 3: Assemble your adoption team
A successful rollout is never a solo effort. Build a cross-functional team that can guide strategy, secure resources, and champion adoption across the organization.
Executive Sponsor(s)
Secure an active and visible executive sponsor. Their influence accelerates buy-in, clears roadblocks, and keeps adoption a business priority. Strong sponsorship ensures alignment, visibility, and momentum.
Executive sponsor criteria:
- Ability to influence senior leaders and secure resources
- Authority over impacted groups and systems
- Willingness to model and communicate change
Executive sponsor responsibilities:
- Champion the vision and communicate its importance
- Provide resources and remove roadblocks
- Establish clear expectations for managers and teams
- Listen to feedback across levels and address resistance constructively
If you’re struggling to identify an executive sponsor, start with the leaders who decided to adopt Atlassian Cloud, signed off on the investment, or hold final authority when issues are escalated. The right sponsor can champion change, influence peers, and commit resources when needed.
Project Owner
Assign a Directly Responsible Individual (DRI) such as a Project Manager, Change Manager, or IT lead. Their success is tied to the success of the rollout, making them accountable for driving execution.
Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)
Bring in both technical and business SMEs. Technical SMEs configure tools and guide training, while business SMEs provide team-level insights, surface challenges, and help tailor communications to real needs.
Coalition building
Your adoption team should represent all stakeholders (executives, IT, SMEs, and business units). Together, they ensure the plan balances technical readiness with user adoption and creates a strong foundation for success.
Step 4: Scope the rollout
Your rollout strategy sets the tone for adoption. Whether you launch in phases or all at once, choose the approach that best fits your organization’s size, culture, and goals. A clear scope ensures teams know what to expect and builds confidence in the change. Create a high-level project plan to visually share critical milestones and communicate scope in a timeline framework.
Big bang rollout
Introduce Atlassian Cloud apps to your entire organization at once using a lift and shift approach. This works well for company-wide digital transformations or leadership-driven mandates, creating immediate alignment and momentum.
Phased rollout
Roll out by department or pilot group, applying lessons learned to each new phase. This approach allows for targeted support, reduces risk, and creates early success stories that build enthusiasm.
Prioritizing departments
If you choose a gradual rollout, begin with departments that collaborate closely. These users are generally using the same apps and can work together to normalize the new processes. This will help you prioritize use cases later on (detailed in Step 8). You might also want to consider teams or departments that have a reputation for being open to change, so you face less resistance at the start.
Regardless of which approach you choose, be sure to take into account the change formula:
- Who is impacted? (People)
- How will they be impacted? What will change? (Process)
- What apps will be used? (Tools)
TIP: Migrating 1,000+ users? Contact your account team about the FastShift program to take advantage of dedicated support from our team of experts, including Advisory Services and Solution Partners, to help accelerate your transition. If you have any questions about your migration approach, you can also contact Support.
Run steps 5 to 8 in parallel
Steps 5 to 8 work best when run in parallel, rather than sequentially, because these activities inform each other. For example, your champions will help you understand what users need and which use cases matter most, which in turn will shape your communications and training plans. Running these steps at the same time creates tighter feedback loops and ensures every team gets the right comms, training, and support needed at the outset of your Atlassian Cloud launch.
Step 5: Identify champions
Champions are critical components to a successful rollout. They play such a pivotal role in driving adoption that we’ve dedicated a separate guide for this step. Champions are enthusiastic teammates embedded within the teams where change is happening, so they are well-positioned to build trust, spread positive sentiment, and accelerate change. Identifying champions across your organization ensures your message is amplified and adoption momentum is sustained.
Step 6: Build your communications plan
You’ve got a plan in place that’s been vetted by your rollout team. Now, how will you communicate the change to teams and foster positive sentiment toward it? Create a high-level communication plan to visually share the critical milestones and communication cadences.
Determine a communication cadence
Repetition is key. It’s not realistic to expect a single announcement to reach everyone, so plan for multiple communications through different channels. Allow teams time to get comfortable with the change so they’re ready when rollout happens.
Identify sponsors
People are more likely to act on messages from leaders they trust. Enlist your Executive Sponsor (Step 3) and Champions (Step 5) to deliver updates. Their involvement boosts visibility and credibility.
Choose the channel(s) you’ll use
Because you’ll be sending multiple communications, you’ll want to use a mix of channels to maximize reach:
- Email and/or Loom from Executive Sponsor
- Corporate intranet or newsletters
- Slack, Teams, Zoom background, desktop screensaver
- Town halls or team meetings
- Physical signage or swag (posters, laptop stickers)
- Announcements and/or banners on the Data Center Confluence home page, Jira home page, or in the Jira Service Management help center and portal.
Decide what you’ll communicate and when
While there is no perfect recipe for communications to users, we have created a framework you can leverage. This is just a recommendation, as the timing of each phase will be specific to your migration planning. You’ll likely have additional comms sent to subgroups, for example, when you are recruiting champions or preparing your help desk team for an influx in support tickets around launch. We have templates for each of the emails outlined below that you can customize for your organization.
Migration
If you’re migrating from Data Center or another platform, here’s an example communication schedule.
Phase | Assess | Plan | Prep | Test | Pre-launch/migrate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Timing | 6-12 months prior to migration | 4-6 months prior to migration | 2-3 months prior to migration | 1-2 months prior to migration | 2 weeks before launch |
Email subject | We're planning to migrate to Atlassian Cloud! | Planning for Atlassian Cloud: What’s migrating, new feature highlights and training resources | Atlassian Cloud - Invitation to UAT | Atlassian Cloud UAT is now in session! | We’re rolling out Atlassian Cloud! |
Email purpose | Give users early notice of the migration project | Give users more information on migration scope, new features and training resources | Share expectations of UAT | Kickoff UAT and share important details | Remind users of pending Atlassian Cloud launch. Call to action - bookmark new URL(s), download mobile app(s) |
Adoption
Phase | Launch/Migrate | Post-launch | Post-launch | Post-launch | Post-launch |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Timing | Launch day | 1 week post launch | 2 weeks post launch | 1 month post launch | 6 weeks post launch |
Email subject | Start using Atlassian Cloud today | Thank you for your Atlassian Cloud rollout support! | Tips & tricks for Atlassian Cloud | How are you liking Atlassian Cloud? | Announcing Atlassian product feature updates! |
Email purpose | Announce Atlassian Cloud launch is complete. Call to action: log in to site, bookmark URL(s), download mobile app(s) | Thank and acknowledge the teams that made the rollout a success | Remind users how to login to new site. Share user training materials | Check in: request initial feedback | Share new features and other product update |
Regardless of which channels you use to communicate, take the time to customize your comms so each team sees how Atlassian Cloud connects to their unique challenges and use cases (as identified in Step 8). For example, Marketing will want to learn how Jira can track campaign performance, while Legal might focus on contract review workflows in Jira Service Management. Be sure to highlight live training opportunities and other available resources.
Step 7: Build your training and support plan
Training ensures teams feel confident in Atlassian Cloud from day one. A thoughtful plan equips users with the necessary knowledge and establishes ongoing support channels that sustain adoption over time.
Create a learning hub
Give your users access to a centralized learning hub, which serves as a one-stop shop and a source of truth for everything they need to ensure a successful transition to Atlassian Cloud. The hub should have resources with a welcome message, links to learning resources, learning timelines, tip sheets, and FAQs. You can use the Jira, Confluence, and Jira Service Management migration hub templates for ideas on how to share key information.
TIP: Take advantage of our in-app features like custom Jira Onboarding to showcase your hub!
Design training for all learners
Offer resources in multiple formats to match different learning styles, such as written guides, videos, and interactive demos. Focus on the tasks users perform most often, like creating Jira issues or editing Confluence pages, so training feels immediately relevant.
Create onboarding checklists
Provide a simple checklist for first-time users, covering both universal tasks (for example, setting time zones) and configurations unique to your organization. Clear guidance reduces confusion and accelerates comfort with new cloud apps.
You can also direct users to our on-demand Learning courses to highlight differences between Data Center and Cloud, making for a quick cloud transition to Jira, Confluence, and Jira Service Management.
Empower IT and champions
Train your network of IT admins and champions alongside end users. This ensures your support team is prepared to resolve issues quickly, while champions can answer questions and share best practices within their teams.
Provide ongoing support
Set up Slack or Teams channels where users can ask questions and get quick answers. Encourage champions to monitor these spaces, helping scale support beyond IT.
TIP: Use this guide and your own custom FAQ document as a cloud app training foundation. The guide outlines important changes to cover before launch and can be used to probe questions asked by new users. Then, use your own FAQ as a living document to capture and address the frequently asked questions throughout the life of the app.
Step 8: User acceptance testing
Adoption succeeds when teams see real problems solved. Focus your rollout on use cases that matter most to each department, so users immediately connect Atlassian apps to their daily work.
Uncover challenges
To do this, you need to identify current challenges and determine how you can use Atlassian apps to help solve them. Work with business SMEs to identify pain points across teams. Ask where processes slow down, handoffs break, or work gets lost. These challenges are your best entry points for adoption.
Define use cases
Once you’ve scoped your rollout and prioritized which departments will implement first, you can then choose use cases by department. Again, work with your business SMEs to identify the right use cases, as they may look different in Cloud or be entirely new.
Here’s an example of how you could identify which use cases you’d like to land in each department (or across the entire organization):
Department | Current challenges | Use cases |
|---|---|---|
Marketing | ||
HR | ||
Legal | ||
Operations |
You may uncover more use cases than you can handle at once, so start small and prioritize which ones to tackle first. Prioritize by business impact and team readiness, then pilot with a willing group. Early wins create internal case studies and momentum for broader rollout.
Don’t just replicate old workflows in Atlassian Cloud apps. Use your launch as an opportunity to simplify, modernize, and explore new capabilities built into Atlassian Cloud.
Confirm readiness
Before expanding adoption, confirm that your rollout will support teams on day one. Defining a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and running User Acceptance Testing (UAT) ensures your launch delivers stability and business continuity.
MVP outlines the essential functionality teams need to succeed immediately after launch. This should cover 70–80% of daily tasks, focusing on business-critical workflows and features. Once the MVP is defined and agreed upon, it will be used in UAT to determine what tests are performed.
UAT validates the MVP with real users. UAT confirms that workflows, integrations, and key features perform as expected, giving teams confidence and surfacing improvements early.
TIP: UAT pilot users should include champions, power users, admins, and at least one rep from each key department. These users should provide comprehensive feedback, which reduces surprises and sets a positive tone across the organization.
Step 9: Ship it!
You’ve completed Steps 1 through 8 and you’re ready to go – congrats! With your plan complete and rollout team aligned, it’s time to launch. Announce the rollout confidently, highlight the benefits for teams and the organization, and point users toward training and support resources provided in the previous steps.
Step 10: Monitor & engage
With a successful launch complete, you must now ensure that adoption continues to grow and teams derive lasting value from Atlassian Cloud. Be sure to monitor feedback channels from Step 8 and check in on a regular basis on the following:
- Were we successful? What are our success metrics telling us? Do we need to course-correct?
- How are our teams feeling about the change?
- Are teams asking for additional features, add-ons, or apps? Are there other training resources that would be helpful?
- Are there successes in one department that can be highlighted and shared to keep up the momentum?
- How can we take this to the next level? Is there a new use case we want to land org-wide? Are we ready for teams to start using another Atlassian app to help solve an ongoing challenge?
TIP: To learn how your teams are feeling about the change, consider surveying them. You can access built in survey plugins in Atlassian Marketplace: Surveys for Jira, Surveys for JSM, and Surveys for Confluence. Or, use Google Forms, Survey Monkey, and other survey platforms. Here are a few questions you may consider including in your survey(s):
- Which tools are you using on a day-to-day basis?
- On a scale of 1-10, how comfortable are you with using [app]?
- What are your primary use cases for using [app]?
- What is working well for your team today?
- Are you responsible for training your team on how to use [app]?
- Are you interested in getting more training & resources? If so, for which apps/features?