Seeking feedback: Interested in using Atlas and Jira Product Discovery together?

[Rachel Lin]

Hi everyone! I'm Rachel and I'm a product manager on Atlas, working on our integrations to Jira. One avenue we're exploring is how Atlas projects and goals connect with Jira Product Discovery, our new prioritisation and roadmapping tool, built for product teams. We believe connecting these will help you understand how product ideas map to company goals, to better prioritise your backlog, build your roadmaps, and allocate resources.

I'm looking to run some customer feedback sessions for those who would be interested in this integration, to better understand your use cases and desires. 

If you have some time this week for a quick chat and you're using both Atlas and Jira Product Discovery, please drop something in my calendar so you can shape the product to your needs! 

https://calendly.com/rlin2/atlas-jpd-research

If there are no available slots but you're keen to have a chat, feel free to drop and comment in this discussion and we can organise a time. 

[Alexandre Krammel]

Simple:

• Link JPD Ideas to Atlas Projects
• Once JPD offers a must needed multi-level hierarchy, any level of it may be linked to any Goal/Sub-Goal in Atlas.

[Amanda Barber]

Hi, @Rachel Lin - we're getting started a bit more seriously with Atlas now and have been using JPD for a while. Happy to chat, but I'll need something before 5pm central time. If you prefer, you could find a time on my calendly here. Looking forward to chatting!

https://calendly.com/amandagc

[Daniella Latham]

Hi Amanda, I've found some time for us to connect as I'm in a friendlier timezone. :) 

[Sing Chen]

Hi @Rachel Linas we review and mature our business processes, we see emerging opportunities to find the balance between automation and business process. Would love to be able to trigger the creation of an Atlas project from a Jira automation.

In there near-term, it would be JPD which we use to manage our internal PMO Practice projects (they don't require the feature-richness of JSW and JPD is a 'softer' landing than JWM).

As an aside, eventually, having the ability to trigger Atlas project creation from JSM would support our intake process. High-level, the process would be:

Business submit intake request -> PMO review and approve (or reject) -> PMO allocate resource to approved requests --> Resource allocation triggers Atlas project creation.

[David Harper]

Hey @Rachel Lin 

I'm currently advising my client of a hierarchy like this

However, Epic > Project doesn't always fit in nicely. When projects represent products, but that product is an API, end-users don't always care about the behind the scenes work.

If you could sync an Idea with an Atlas Project then you could bundle multiple products into a single update.

I think I'd like the option of being able to do both though. Have higher level "end-user" updates in Atlas as well as "in the weeds" updates for other technical teams that might still link to an epic.

[Rachel Lin]

Really interesting - thanks for that context! What do you mean by projects representing products and the product being an API? 

[David Harper]

Hey @Rachel Lin ,

(One Repository + One Jira Project + One Confluence Space + One Compass Component) === One Product

But a Feature might required a change in Multiple Products (ie: many APIs + a front-end). This is grouped in JPD under an idea and an epic for that feature exists in EACH of the Jira Projects.

Example:
Product One = Frontend built in React
Product Two = Backend built in Python, deployed to a cloud app service and sitting behind API Management.

Currently how an Atlas Project links to a Jira Epic means we would have an Atlas Project for each component of change, not the Feature being developed. That might be fine if the target audience is other developers in other areas getting a flavour of what is going on in the org, but if Atlas is used for communicating to stakeholder those stakeholders mostly only care about the changes in the frontend system, as in what they are going to interact with.

Atlas itself also doesn't lend itself well to "API Products" (This would typically be a set of APIs exposed via an API Management system) as Atlas leans in heavily of rich media updates (which is great), but a set of changes to an API product usually consists of "Added endpoint {x}" and "Change output of {y} to include additional JSON".

[Karin van Driel]

Hi @Rachel Lin,

What @David Harper shows in his diagram is quite similar to how we organise our work. It would be great if we could sync goals between Atlas and JPD and Projects in Atlas with Ideas in JPD, or if we just look at Jira Software, to allow syncing at a higher lever in our hierarchy than Epic. Our Epics are too small to each warrant updates to Stakeholders individually in most cases. It would be great to sync at that slightly higher level and to indicate at what level the 'Project' you create in Jira connects, rather than forcing the connection at the Epic level :) 

This and the reworking of the Team concept has held us back from really rolling out the use of Atlas in our org.

[Jerry O'Sullivan]

Hi @Rachel Lin have you got time time that works with EU timezone - https://calendly.com/josullivan-3-k/30min

If you can get some time my afternoon...I may be able to bring in some US colleagues as well but that is not vital

[Rachel Lin]

I will see if my teammate @Daniella Latham , based in the US may be able to set up time with you and the US folks :) 

[Daniella Latham]

Hi @Jerry O_Sullivan - I've found some time for us later this week to connect!

[Mark de Bont]

Only started to look at Atlas this week and a bit puzzled with the added value when already using Jira Product Discovery? It seems the latter can already tick of a lot of boxes.

[Rachel Lin]

Hey Mark, that's an interesting question. Curious to understand more about where you feel the two overlap?

Jira Product Discovery is a place for a team to collate customer insights, manage their ideas and represent that on a roadmap. 

Atlas is for teams of teams to communicate on the status of work with one another, through weekly curated comms. It targets more of the outsider stakeholder to the direct team e.g. leadership or dependent teams. 

[Alexandre Krammel]

@Rachel Lin I can see the distinction you mention on JPD vs Atlas purpose. JPD is more for the planning phase, and Atlas for the execution reporting.

But since JPD overs Delivery Tickets feature, it supports the move from JPD to Jira, and also view Jira issues (linked as delivery tickets) on JPD allowing for a Idea reporting which is quite the same as Atlas Projects reporting. It is not curated, but comments on JPD Ideas can also do the job.

Of course, Atlas project (and goals) updates are richer as a communication tool than using JPD as I mentioned.

For sure, Atlas complements quite well JPD, and that is why integrating them makes a lot of sense to keep the link between JPD Ideas and Atlas Projects.

[Omer Meshar]

We are working with JPD for quite some time now, and just recently started to look at Atlas a bit more seriously. One thing that we immediately saw was that both have goals. Would be better if the goals in JPD would be the same goals coming from Atlas.

[David Harper]

@Omer Meshar You can have Atlas Goals come through to JPD by signing up to the JPD integration via the JPD forums.

[Rachel Lin]

Totally!! We are exploring with JPD on how we make this happen. I may be slightly biased but using Atlas goals is going to give you more rich context (description, monthly updates, team associated to the goal etc) than the default goals field in JPD ;) 

[Omer Meshar]

Hi @Rachel Lin ,

I was able to add the integration between JPD and Atlas and can now select Atlas goals from within JPD :-)

However, on Atlas, I can't see the ideas linked to the goals anywhere :-(

I understand that I can create projects that contribute to the goals, and then maybe link ideas to the projects, but that's exactly what I was trying to avoid...

Are you considering to have on Atlas goals any way to see which ideas are contributing to it?

[Trevor Thompson]

I am interested in getting Atlas working at my company and am using JPD today - have lots of thoughts about how/what info surfaces up to Atlas since I've used Atlas in the past..

would love to chat but Rachel your australian timezone is rough for those of us in the US. Please reach out and we can find something that works - would be happy to share my thoughts

[Adam Cole]

Would love to connect, didn't see any times -- very interested, we just started with JPD moving roadmap into there, revisiting Atlas, and digging into this now. We're mostly on Pacific Time if you can send calendar options.

[Daniella Latham]

Hi @Adam Cole I'm in the US if that works better for you! Please choose a time in my calendar: https://www.getclockwise.com/c/daniella-latham/30-min-meeting

[Kevin Rigard]

@Rachel Lin - We are currently using both tools and would love to provide some feedback to the Atlassian team. 

[David Nadri]

@Rachel Lin - didn't see any available slots on your calendar, but would be happy to chat!

[Daniella Latham]

Hi @David Nadri I'm in the US if that works better for you! Please choose a time in my calendar: https://www.getclockwise.com/c/daniella-latham/30-min-meeting

[Keith Mancuso]

I;d love to chat as well, we are big JPD and atlas users and right now it can be a lot of work to make sure you have ideas in delivery always mapped to Epics and Projects

[Rachel Lin]

Thank you everyone for your kind offers to speak with us! We've set up a bunch of sessions and excited to learn more from you all. I think we have enough sessions scheduled to get solid insights from now, but please continue to provide feedback and keep an eye out as we're always looking to have conversations with you all. 

[Đorđe Babić]

Very interested in this. 

- My IT team is already on Jira (+advanced roadmap) 
- I am onboarding Product Management team on Jira Product Discovery (going great)
- I am now looking to onboard broad company to Atlas, and have a connection between all parties, to avoid other teams (marketing, business development, sales, using Trello / Asana / similar, and to have to figure out integration 9 months from now)..

I dont know if i will be available for a cal, will try to make it

[Johan Lejdung]

Hello,

We've setup our Product Development around Product Discovery and not Epics, so it would be really useful for us to be able to reference our development efforts towards a project in Atlas :)

Thanks Rachel.