(1 of 3) How Atlassians plan meetings they want to attend: The one with too many action items
👋 Hi Community! I’m Ariel with Atlassian Customer Success. We’re here to help you succeed with Atlassian products like Confluence and Trello. Let’s see if you can guess what our 3-part series is about:
We all have them – some are good, some are spent multi-tasking, and some could have been an email.
You guessed it… meetings!
It’s easy to grab time on someone's calendar - but it’s important to make sure it's a valuable use of time, there's a clear purpose, and that any action items are clear. You’ll always have some meetings, so making the ones you do have as effective and intentional as possible saves you time in the long run.
|
This series will highlight three Atlassian teams who use Confluence and Trello together to: ✅ Track meeting agendas and action items in one place ✅ Facilitate retrospectives that are both structured and flexible ✅ Help cross-functional teams get on the same page fast |
PS. Check out the second and third posts in this series next!
👥 Meet the team
The first team we’ll highlight is the Digital Campaign team – which I just so happen to be on! We’re responsible for helping customers successfully use and adopt the Atlassian cloud products they’ve purchased.
We’re constantly evolving the way we meet and get work done. Before incorporating Trello into Confluence, we met four times a week between working sessions, team meetings, and stand-ups. Each meeting has a dedicated Confluence page that includes an agenda and task report.
🆘 What were the challenges?
-
It was difficult to track agendas and action items for multiple types of meetings – information was getting lost across different Confluence pages that got cluttered easily.
-
Teammates didn’t want to wait for the meeting to ask questions or provide updates for specific action items.
-
Meetings became focused on action item reminders rather than discussion and decision-making.
🤔 How did this impact the team?
Between meetings, Slack conversations often looked like this…
“Can you remind me when you need this by?”
”Where was the link to the guidelines?”
“Who should I ask for help with submitting information?”
“Anything else I missed?”
Getting simple things accomplished felt overwhelming. There was no single place for the team to find and share updates.
✅ What was the solution?
The Digital team started using Trello to complement our use of Confluence for meetings. The board works on its own, but we took it one step further and embedded it into the Confluence agenda pages so everything is all on one page.
💡Pro-tip: With Trello Premium or Enterprise, take the pressure off remembering due dates with Dashcard alerts. We set up automatic Slack reminders to post in our team Slack channel so we all know what’s due every week.
👍 How did it help?
|
By adding the Trello board to each Confluence meeting page, we can see everything in one place. The Confluence page provides individual meeting context, agendas, and notes, and the Trello board is where we create and track action items and tasks. |
We can add or move cards, edit details, and do everything else you’d usually do on a Trello board, right from the Confluence page.
Teammates who take time off are able to catch up quickly with what they missed while out. The Trello board stays clean and concise thanks to some helpful Trello automations. (Check them out in our board template ⬇️ )
|
💭 Meeting tips from Atlassians:
|
💸 Bonus! With this simplified setup, we turned one of the two stand-up meetings into an async touchpoint since all updates, roadblocks, and progress are clearly indicated in the Trello board (directly within Confluence). Comments, questions, and reactions to these weekly updates are welcomed. Wins are celebrated with confetti. 🎉
🎁 Try it yourself!
Try out the free templates the Digital Campaign team uses every day:
Has this post helped revamp your meetings? What are some other helpful tips you have? Leave us a comment below!
All the best,
Ariel
🎓 Want more? Take our free 30-minute Atlassian University course to learn about the four principles of an effective meeting: preparation, facilitation, participation, and follow-up.
Was this helpful?
Thanks!
Ariel Hascal
9 comments