What project did you transition or start on Confluence with the shift to remote work?

[Brittany Sudlow]

It’s been great to hear from fellow users over the last few weeks about the best tips and fun moments you’ve had working on Confluence since the transition to working remote.

I’d love to keep the conversation going! Feel free to post discussions and tag me in them if you’d like advice or answers. But for now, I’ll announce our recent winner of the random drawing from those who commented on last week’s post. Congrats @Ben_Z !

Now, to the new question at hand. What project did you start on (or transition to) Confluence with the shift to remote work?

For me, well, we document EVERYTHING on Confluence. So I’m not sure anything new switched on to Confluence that wouldn’t have been on there before. But I will say I think I capture meeting notes and next steps a little better, now that we’re not in person. I used to take notes on a paper and pen notebook (old school), but now it helps me keep track of the ever growing Zoom calls when I can reference and share meetings notes easily on Confluence.

What about you?

Don’t forget, comment below for a chance to win a prize!

[Marianne Miller]

We also use Confluence as our primary document repository.  I also use it for storing some meeting notes and Retrospectives.

Confluence has been so helpful in keeping us organized and on top of things as a remote team.  I have used the time to develop a few more templates and organize our growing body of work/project documentation, but the structure is there and easy to work with.  I feel like we're just scratching the surface and I hope to find some other opportunities to capitalize on our Confluence features.

I like your idea of adding the meeting notes too.  I'm typically a pen and paper gal myself, but it may be helpful to make that available online for cross-reference.  Thanks for sharing!

Marianne

[Brittany Sudlow]

Love to hear that! And same! Sometimes I still write notes on a paper....but then I type it into Confluence. Ha! With so many meetings these days, not everyone can attend every call so I think that has forced my hand to be better at making them public. 

[Miw Tanchanok]

hi

[scott_boisvert]

We use TCE (Team Collaboration Environment) boards in our organization. The majority of them were physical white boards spread out all over the building one for each team. Basically, once or twice a week (like a standup) the team gets around the board to give Kudos, discus what the team is working on at a high level, Problems that need to be solved, evaluate metrics for success, innovation/CI ideas and any time off or upcoming training.

A few months before we moved to a virtual work environment, one of our managers asked it would be possible to put the TCE in Jira. It made more sense to me to put it in Confluence after playing around with some  ideas in Jira. His team used it and loved it. I then came out my TCE 2.0, which used Jira issue collectors on the Confluence page and the Jira Issue/Filter macro to display the items. They loved it more. 

About 2 weeks before we were sent home, our AVP of Operational Excellence asked for a demo (she brought the TCE boards into the organization and her team was responsible for the roll out and training on them). She loved it, had some suggestions, which I incorporated.

About a week after we get sent home, others started asking me for a virtual TCE board. Then after a conversation with the AVP, they made an announcement at a virtual all hands meeting that my virtual TCE board was the preferred virtual implementation. 

We now have almost 50 TCE boards running in Confluence. Keeping teams together and in sync. We have the ability to display items on multiple boards/escalate or de-escalate items and there complete transparency between the teams as everyone has access to the boards.  

[Brittany Sudlow]

This is sooo awesome! Love to see that you can tie all the different tools together and inspired each other remotely. The world needs a lot of that right now :)

[Jack Brickey]

Hi @Brittany Sudlow , similar to you I document everything in Confluence as well. However, what I can clearly point to that was uniquely driven by Covid-19 and the impacts that drove us to a major remote work initiative was in quite a few living-pages under our BCP (Business Continuity Plan) space. I'm very proud of the effort that the entire senior leadership team has taken since the early days of C-19. Not only did the team do a great job at documenting everything in Confluence from helpful resources, action plans, responsibilities, etc. but we also incorporated much of this into our Sr. Management project in Jira.  The Confluence pages have been very effective at keeping the entire team up-to-date.

[Brittany Sudlow]

Glad to hear you were able to get your entire senior leadership onboard! That usually helps adoption. And staying connected needs to be adopted right now so business doesn't stop. Love it!

[Fabienne Gerhard]

Hi @Brittany Sudlow - we use Confluence for Wiki and also Documentation. When everyone went on remote work (and in went from one day to another, seemed impossible before that) everyone was under shock. During the last weeks it's getting better and my colleagues are getting crazy about how awesome and powerful Confluence is... -> which means for me a lot of overtime and support. 

I started working more with blueprints and templates to make life easier which creates a sort of WIN-WIN situation. My colleagues can easier us our system and do better documentation, write everything down and enjoy the advantages - I feel good because I solved another problem, got deeper into system aso and I could also adopt some of the solutions. 

Because of Covid-19 our Onboarding Process stalled. I've made the suggestion before to include our Confluence System more but it is more difficult.... Due to the current situation and experience this has now changed and it's great having a system that makes you this flexible!

[Brittany Sudlow]

I'm glad to hear you're effectively using templates -- work smarter not harder! Am I right?? We have a few HR and onboarding templates pre-made already. Here's a link in case you have't seen them yet! https://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence/templates/categories/human-resources

[Fabienne Gerhard]

Thanks for sharing @Brittany Sudlow - smart was the word I was looking for 😊 

[Dominic Lagger]

Hi all

As the most of you, we document already almost everything on confluence. But for the WFH, we have an own page with subpages for all organizational things we did before on a wall with post-its.

For example, we have a sprint map with all the team attendances for the next sprint. Now this is a simple confluence page :) 

Or another example is a flipchart, which is for the team to share ANYTHING with the team. This SHARE ANYTHING flipchart is now a confluence page and works really well! :) 

But not only confluence, also JIRA has changed our daily work. In the office we have a physical scrum wall --> Now it's all digital in jira! We love it! 

Regards, Dominic

[Brittany Sudlow]

That's great! I'm usually a visual, tangible sticky-note person too. But I've noticed I love the ability to search, copy & paste, etc on Confluence. So we'll see if I stick with it when we're back in the office. 

I think our blogging culture has gotten even stronger remote for that same purpose of "just share anything". Those random proud moments you want to share, or open ended questions to riff on, new employee bio's, etc. It's been a cool way to feel like you're just chatting with people in the office. 

[Julius Zatroch]

Hi Brittany.

We are using Linchpin Intranet add-on and the most used features are Microblog and Linchpin mobile App. We have created microblogs for every team and people are using it daily to share quick notes, from home, office, roads... With excellent Linchpin mobile app they are accessible anywhere and anytime.

So it wasn't any new project, but work from home was new challenge for us to find new ways how to work online and Confluence with Linchpin was perfect answer.

[james.moses]

Hi  @Brittany Sudlow 

Like most of you, we document important details and info on confluence. During this Season(COVID-19)Confluence has been a lifesaver for me and the team. working few Projects become fast and More collab. Can talk Less About Jira. @Brittany Sudlow  Your team are amazing. Thank You confluence 

[Brittany Sudlow]

Thanks @james.mosesGreat to hear!