What We've Been Missing: Team '22 Takeaways

[#1]

Here's a story about something very simple. 

I work for an Atlassian Marketplace app vendor. It happens to be the company that makes Structure for Jira (among other things), but really this story is broadly applicable. Its not about us.

We just added a new feature to our our product, and at first glance, it seems sort of basic. It's a Text Wrapping feature that lets you see all the details of an issue in one place, so you don't have to scroll or export to Excel to see everything. Simple, right?

But at Team '22, we got to see our customers' eyes light up when we mentioned it. They loved it! No more Excel exports? No more fiddling with column widths? Fantastic! 

This is the kind of thing we'd been missing — the in-the-room reactions that let us know we're on the right track with something.  We also missed the riffing and cross-talk messiness of group conversations, uninhibited by the strictures of a Google Meetup or Zoom screens. Let's face it: Getting a group together to brainstorm or share experiences is just vastly better in person. It's much easier to "read the room" when the room isn't a virtual one. 

To be sure: The remote-work revolution has had some significant upsides for our team — and in-person gatherings are still just not possible for so many people — but we wanted to celebrate all we learned at Atlassian's big event this month, and try to use this opportunity to springboard more interactions and community-building, even across long distances, in the months to come.

What we learned

We were reminded about the importance of great customer service (and heard that our support team is universally beloved — yay).

We also heard reminders that customers want a solution that doesn't require them to call support.

We learned that our solutions are, if anything, under-utilized by people who could be getting much more out of them. 

We learned that not all of our new ideas hit the mark.

We learned that we should keep striving for simplicity ("Dumb it down," in the words of one customer).

It was all a reminder about the things you learn when you're having casual chats as well as in-depth interviews. Most customer and partner calls in the remote world are made for a specific, limited purpose. It reminded us that we should aim for more in-depth conversations — if you make an effort, remote conversations can also provide these deep insights and inspiration.

Keeping in touch

We bet our Team '22 experience is not unique. It has us wanting to keep these deeper conversations and frank communication going, and we’re confident the rest of the app developers you work with feel the same way.  Reach out to any of us whenever you feel the need!

Our (every) Atlassian Marketplace listing highlights ways for you to connect. 

And always feel free to talk with us! We met so many people in Las Vegas, and we want to keep the energy throughout the year — drop us a line if you want to talk about Agility, project management, Jira or Structure. We love to talk shop, and Team '22 gave us insights that have already helped us improve our plans for the rest of 2022 and beyond. Let's keep it going!

[Mirek]

Great that you decided to be there in person :) .. That is very important. Hope that next year more vendors and people can also join and we would be soon back like it was before pandemic :)

[Matthias Gaiser _K15t_]

@Dave Rosenlund - I can just back every single word you've said.

It was great meeting you and meeting lots of partners, Atlassian users & Atlassians. Working also for a marketplace partner (K15t), I enjoyed the conversations at our booth about our apps and about broader Atlassian topics. It was interesting to hear what people struggle with, what they're excited for - just a casual conversation, without special preparation for a remote discussion about a certain topic.

Events like team open up my mind in order to grasp topics from another angle, be less focussed on our apps directly - and reading your post, I'm sure I'm not the only one like that.

I'm looking forward to the next event - and I'm happy that many partners and ACEs are starting with their offline events again.

[Dave Rosenlund]

IMO, we're at an interesting cross-roads, @Matthias Gaiser _K15t_ & @Mirek. For many, travel and or in-person events are still more risky than they'd like. I totally get it.

I suspect this is why many community members chose to stay home this year.

Hopefully, things will continue to improve and next year's Team '23 will be even better — and much closer to what we experienced in 2019.

Regarding ACE meetings, I agree Matthais!

But I also hope many ACE leaders will choose a hybrid approach by alternating between in-person and online events or somehow combining the offline and online experience.  Let's make sure our more COVID-cautious community members don't miss out.   👍

[Andreas Springer _Actonic_]

@Dave Rosenlund, you hit the nail on the head. I couldn't agree more with everything that you said. For us, too, it was a very enlightening experience to go face to face with people which we would've never met otherwise, understand their pain points and get their perspective on our products.

[Dave Liao]

@Dave Rosenlund - it was amazing to meet folks (teammates, partners, vendors, and everyone in-between) on such a scale. Glad I finally could meet the ALM Works/Tempo team in-person, talk shop, and get excited for the Structure 8 release!

Aside from another conference I attended a few days before Team, I hadn't been in a room with so many people in ages. 😅

So, when's the next conference? 😉