Is there a way to edit the amount of days between weekly updates?

[Alex Denning]

My team works in two week sprints, I would love to provide updates at the end of the two weeks as-needed, rather than every week.  I don't want project stakeholders getting a bunch of blank weekly emails for the projects that won't have an update until the end of the two week sprint.

[Mary Raleigh]

@Alex Denning  that makes a lot of sense! In fact we've heard from other teams that they want to customize the day of the week that they submit and read updates. We love that teams have their own rituals and want to build a tool that empowers teams to design the way they work.

Having said that, we believe consistency and predictability is critical to build healthy and effective cross-team communication rituals. For example, let's say another team you work with is also working in 2 week sprints but wants to send updates on the opposite week. In this case your common stakeholders are stuck trying to remember which team they should expect an update from every week. Or if another team is operating in 3 week sprints, we end up losing any sense of predictability altogether and chaos ensues (okay that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but you get that point). 

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The above image is sourced from our cross-team communication framework that reflects how Atlassian teams communicate cross-functionally. We call it the Loop. Take a read and let us know what resonates and what additional content may be helpful to help your departments synchronize your update cadences.

Thanks so much for the question!

Mary

[Alex Denning]

@Mary Raleigh , thanks for the thoughtful response.  For more context, my company has began working in org-wide and company wide sprints. Everyone in my section of the company is on the same sprint schedule so I don't think the first image outlining the problem with the different communication cadences is going to be as much of a problem.  Are there any plans to allow for the timing/cadence around the weekly updates to be changed at all?  I'll clarify - this isn't make or break by any means. Still love the product and am going to continue to use it and have others do the same.

[Mary Raleigh]

Gotcha, thanks for the added context @Alex Denning . Yes we are exploring the ability to customize operating rhythms, terminology and fields for your organization! I can't yet offer a date but will make sure I reply to this thread when we have a more firmed up release date. 

[Alex Denning]

@Mary Raleigh that sounds great, appreciate the transparency!  I look forward to hearing from you again.

[Mary Raleigh]

On more thing, @Alex Denning ! We're currently conducting interviews about how teams are discovering and experiencing Team Central in their first 90 days. If you have time, I'd love to include your insights into our research. Feel free to sign up for a slot here! We'll even send ya some Amazon $$$ as a small thank you for your time!

[Alex Denning]

@Mary Raleigh that sounds great, happy to have a conversation! Just scheduled some time for tomorrow.  Chat soon!

[Josh Hammond]

I like @Phill Fox 's recommendation of being able to set the cadence. Perhaps this could be an org-level setting to still allow the benefits of all teams within the organization being synchronized while also accommodating different cultures and organization-wide practices?

[Phill Fox]

I am coming a little late to this post but would like to reinforce that the force an update to be written on a Friday for everyone to receive on the Monday does not take account of both cultural differences around the globe nor cultures within an organisation. 

If you look at the table on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workweek_and_weekend whilst many countries observe a Monday-Friday week there are plenty that do not. 

Add in the different organisation culture and you get another dimension altogether.  Some organisations for instance schedule sprint start/end to avoid the Monday/Friday due to the large number of public holidays that fall around weekends. Others have a cadence of reporting their cycles of activity that is aligned with the sprint cycle.  We should also not forget that some projects may be on much longer cycles of activity or even be completely outside a regular cycle but for which a different or even no cadence is right. 

My preferred solution would be to allow an organisation to choose a day of the week on which to capture all updates and to also define the publication day.  On a per project basis to be able to define the cadence of reporting as weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly etc. 
When a summarised report is distributed it should show a suitable message for those projects that are not expected to included in the report.