Collaboration apps designed to increase productivity and engagement: Catapult Labs

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This month, we’re excited to feature Catapult Labs, the team behind Agile Retrospectives for Jira—a popular app that’s transforming how distributed Agile teams run their ceremonies. We had a conversation with Monica Tye, Product Lead at Catapult Labs, to learn more about the company's journey, mission, and what’s next.

Q: Tell us about Catapult Labs. What’s the company’s mission?

MT: At Catapult Labs, our mission is to help distributed Agile teams work better together. We focus on building tools that not only save time but also make Agile ceremonies more effective—driving valuable conversations, improving team alignment, and ensuring that action items don’t fall through the cracks. We believe that great collaboration isn’t just about checking boxes; it’s about creating shared understanding, transparency, and continuous improvement. That’s what guides everything we build. After 7 years in the Atlassian ecosystem, we're happy to be Gold Marketplace Partners, a great achievement, considering we're entirely focused on our apps (not a service provider). 

The team in Amsterdam working during an Atlassian ConnectWeek back in 2016

Q: What do you think has been the secret to Catapult Labs success so far?

MT: Two things: Customer focus and continuous improvement. We don't just build apps—we build solutions that fit seamlessly into the way Agile teams work. We’re constantly engaging with users, learning from their experiences, and refining our products based on real-world feedback. The second part is dogfooding—we use our own apps daily. This helps us identify what works, what doesn’t, and what needs to evolve. We’re always asking ourselves, “Is this truly making teamwork easier and more effective?”

Q: The Atlassian Marketplace is a competitive space. How does Agile Retrospectives for Jira stand out?

MT: Great question! There are so many great tools out there, but what really sets Agile Retrospectives for Jira apart is our focus on making Agile Retrospectives more effective, not just more efficient. Many retrospective tools help teams save time, but we’ve always wanted to go further—to promote richer conversations, build team alignment, and drive measurable progress. Funny enough, the app actually started about 7 years ago, during an Atlassian “App Day” (RIP App Days 🙏). These were hands-on events where third-party dev teams worked alongside Atlassian PMs (and rockstars) like Sharif Mansour to build apps that addressed real user pain points. At the time, we were working on Scrum Poker Estimates for Jira, an extension of a stand-alone product we already had. During the event, Atlassian mentioned how many users were struggling with retrospectives—there was a built-in template for Confluence, but nothing that really helped teams drive meaningful outcomes. That resonated with us because we’d seen the same challenge firsthand. Retrospectives were happening, but:

• Action items were getting lost.
• Agreements weren’t visible.
• Tracking progress across sprints was inconsistent.

We realized there was an opportunity to bridge that gap—not just to run retrospectives more efficiently, but to turn them into powerful drivers of continuous improvement, especially for remote teams. With Agile Retrospectives for Jira, we wanted to solve that by creating a tool that:

• Facilitates valuable, structured, and transparent discussions—even asynchronously.
• Promotes transparency around agreements and action items.
• Tracks action items directly in Jira, ensuring accountability.
• Automates follow-up, ensuring teams stay on track toward continuous improvement by making progress visible and measurable.

It's all about transparency.

That’s been our guiding principle ever since. Ultimately, it’s about turning conversation into action—so retrospectives become a powerful driver of team growth, not just another meeting on the calendar. It’s been incredible to see how teams have embraced it—not just to run better retrospectives, but to drive real, lasting improvements in their workflows.

Turning resulting action items into Jira issues for improved follow-up. Right into your workflows!

Q: What’s next for Catapult Labs?

MT: We’re working on some exciting new products to further expand Jira’s capabilities! Branch Commit & Pull Request Manager for Jira: This new app will make it easier to track branch activity and pull requests directly within Jira, improving visibility for both developers and project managers. AI-Powered Agile Tools: We’re also exploring how AI can supercharge Agile ceremonies, making retros, stand-ups, and planning even more insightful and efficient. Our goal is to empower teams to work smarter, not harder, while maintaining the human connection that’s at the heart of Agile.

Part of the Catapult team during the Team '24 event.