What “async” tactics or tools will you try with your team this year?

[Andrew DeBell]

"Async collaboration" may be the way of the future...but it's still a new concept.

This powerful form of teamwork helps move projects forward, regardless of your team's time zones or geographic locations. It allows you to get work done more efficiently, reducing face-to-face meeting time and freeing up schedules.

Successful async collaboration, however, requires thought, planning, and effort. And with any new concept, there's a lot we can learn from each other. That's the purpose of this post.

Please comment below to share and discuss your "async" tactics or tools you plan to try with your team this year.

Here's the prompt: Name two "async" tactics of tools you plan to try with your team this year. Explain why and how.

If you're enrolled in the Atlassian University course on Async Collaboration for Distributed Teams...once you've shared your comment below, return to your Atlassian University browser tab to complete the course.

If you're not enrolled in the full course, but would like to be, you can enroll here for free.

Thanks all! Looking forward to reading your thoughts and ideas.

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Note: this article is a prompt within an Atlassian University course, Async Collaboration for Distributed Teams. In this activity, learners have the opportunity to provide their advice and suggestions on Community. Even if you haven’t taken the course, you’re still welcome to respond to this post and give your advice.

[Lisa Yeager]

We are working to find the right approach for using the Jira toolset to manage our operational processes and resource management across the enterprise (vs for software development).

I note also that we are exploring ways to parse out meetings so that elements of them can be asynch while retaining only what really must be discussed in person. For example, the initial idea or sticky generation for our retrospectives can be done asynchronously, so that our time together is spent just on discussion of what's been generated. 

One concept that I'm working with as well is the benefit of asynch methods to support team members who are not as comfortable in a group, on camera, etc. 

[Andrew DeBell]

Love these @Lisa Yeager , thanks for your thoughts here! I agree, retrospective ideation seems like a great candidate to shift to async. We've also found this helpful when brainstorming new ideas. Have everyone add stickies async, so then the sync time together can focus more on discussing the ideas, and less on coming up with new ones.

Your last note is also very important! Distributed work is brand new and I think we're all still trying to figure out how to best operate within it. Even individuals that enjoy groups and being on camera could probably use a break from Zoom every once in a while. Great concept and use case here, thanks for sharing...I'm going to ponder that one a bit more.

[Shyamal Sarkar]

Thanks, I found this helpful. We are working with Jira toolsets for our project development and delivery, teams are dispersed and working remotely, so, we are going to use the async collaboration tools and technique for us to effectively manage work, communicate and reduce number of meetings.

[Diane Carroll]

One approach is to do the async prework before the sync meeting so the sync meeting is more successful.  Link the Confluence page to my jira item so it allows people to async and collaborate and provide responses on their own time.

[Anjana Mprasad]

Async prework works best.

[Mansi Joshi]

JIRA Work Management and confluence.

[Amanda Barber]

As our team grows, and expands further across time zones, I'm more and more interested in creating a more productive async environment. I think a key piece for me this year will be to ensure meetings have agendas (which are actually followed) to ensure that the time we do have together is used to the fullest extent. I'd like to also be more intentional about note-taking during meetings, as well as storing those meeting notes somewhere accessible for others to allow people who aren't needed in the initial conversation a chance to review the meeting minutes when it works in their schedule.

I like promoting more asynchronous work since everyone's energy levels are different throughout the day - so even if we're in the same (or close to the same) time zone, there are different points in my day that are more suited for reviewing things that could be done asynchronously. 

Gitlab has some fantastic asynchronous information available that I've been meaning to dig into deeper. I struggle with how to make changes within my team from what I know since everyone is rather set in their ways. I also think there needs to be a clear shift (as a team) from working standard hours to working in a way that suits your energy. This could allow for 4 day weeks, broken days with a long lunch, etc. but the team would need to be on board. In my case, I think I'd struggle with feeling like I had accomplished enough without working a somewhat standard "day" just due to my current tasks. Something for me to ponder/noodle on! 😀

[JOSEPHINE LEE]

Jira software for asyn work is a gd and wonderful way of communicating with project team members to track, monitor, feedback not on real time, which has the transparency of work for team members for the project status, progress updates and align any matter which could be an issue to the project.  

[Xoch]

HI! I am managing an international team remotely. I find these tips very helpful. I am going to introduce async collaboration work to my team step by step. 

I am using Miro in my meeting. I find it very helpful to use a whiteboard to throw ideas and then convert them into Issues directly in Jira.

Doing the async pre-work and establishing things like in an agenda and sending reading materials a couple of days before can save a lot of time.

[Christian Schmidt]

I look forward to using Atlas for status updates. Whether the team is async or not those statuses should be on record for reference.

I think it's a good habit, when writing messages for async response, to take a moment to consider what chances the other party has to give a meaningful answer. If the other party can't understand what I ask or might misunderstand or maybe will need to ask somebody else or tell me to ask somebody else, then it's any number of hours wasted. This is especially true when collaborating with people with other native languages.

[Sofia Aguirre]

I would like to integrate power BI, Trello and another tool with a roadmap so that all team members can see where we are and where we are going

[Jonathan Torres]

Gradually eliminate walk the board meetings that typically have no back and forth conversations with Teams group chats.

Have team members keep task information up to date in Jira to keep the async status alignment exercise short.

[Dawn MacDermid]

I intend to work with my team to encourage better use of Slack for aync comms such as the Daily Stand-up.  We have a large distributed team on multiple continents, and by putting stand-up notes in a Slack chat we can ask folks to call out discussion items needing synchronous collaboration, to maximise the window of time we can second together.

Also I will encourage the  team to set their dedicated time windows to do things such as respond to e-mails, or slack discussions - and to reduce the always on approach, with lots of distractions.

[Rolfe Dlugy-Hegwer]

Unfortunately, not all the tools shown in the Async Collaboration for Distributed Teams training are available where I work. I intend to find equivalents, share these learnings with my team, and gently promote their use. I look forward to using the Working Agreement template, too. 

[Gary Marajh]

Hi, the course gave me a few ideas on how we can save off the weekly meeting burn. 
Top of the list would be the summary/ context video. This would shave off hrs of “pre/ setting the context ”meetings. 
In addition, I am going to explore the built-in Whiteboard and how well it integrates to tickets and dashboard components within Jira. 

[Brian Hamrick]

Two async practices I plan on trying with my team is:

• Confluence-based standup meeting notes. This way the entire team can look back at past questions, actions, and even add new ones before an in person meeting. This would save a good amount of time.
• The whiteboard could prove invaluable for async brainstorming and planning.

[Garet Burns]

Hi! As a Project Manager in a global organization, finding time for synchronous status meetings always left some attendees having to join outside of traditional office hours. I plan on introducing the following practices in future projects:

• Using whiteboards for brainstorming, decision-making, and project planning.
• Replacing status meetings. Instead, use the video time for team building.
• Encourage on-going participation through the use of Slack and comments on Confluence or Jira.

I'm looking forward to experimenting!

[Halocyberparts]

So exciting to learn new methods of communication and interactions without being live. Giving time to edit or modify even a comment. Looking forward to collaborating.

[Todd Lieman]

Using asynch tools to prep for synch meetings is especially powerful and intriguing. I especially like the whiteboard for brainstorming and creating quick video explainers. Using Confluence as the tool where the work happens is key. My experience with other project management tools is that they result in a kind of “task war” where posting tasks is more important than doing the actual work!

[Ami Chitwood]

I think the two async tools I'd like to use more with my team are messaging tools and status tools. These two tools, when used well, could replace regular sync calls in which there's very little collaboration or discussion.

[Ayush Mittal]

I am looking to leverage the status updates and status notifications with the team.  

[Harriet Costa]

I think the discussion about pre-work is  useful since I've started a new job and I've been working hard to set meetings up. The async side is also good where we only need to have a single place to do the work which is available to all.

[Tomasz Rogawski]

As PM I want to reduce the number of tools used to update the status from 3 to 1 (Confluence), so everyone could see the latest report based on Jira data and written updates.

I also want to encourage my team to share updates before a meeting starts, so everyone could see them and then we pick the most important to discuss in a meeting.

[Dimitrina Ivanova]

I loved the idea of an async status meetings. Reducing the numbers of meetings sounds feasible and very practical. 

To keep the team together (synced) we may think of other activities that will socialize the people in an appropriate pleasant way :). 

[Jordan Garn]

A couple of async tactics and tools that we will incorporate slowly of course ;) we may introduce JWM and Trello. We currently use JSD tickets to manage projects, tasks and updates. Atlas looks interesting for higher-level status updating and transparency. Right now async updating through Confluence pages and Slack channels within the organization is working but can be improved. 

[Bp Grant]

Currently, I have been slowly transitioning my team to an async workflow utilizing a combination of Confluence, Whiteboarding and JIRA to provide status updates and manage workflow processes. 

The concepts are not new to my team, we’re a team of developers working on opposite coasts, a lot of our workflows existed in email and teams messaging applications. I began the familiarization process with an instance of a Trello Kanban board. 

As our organization shifts to a more Agile approach, I have been introducing more robust capabilities for tracking and managing issues, status updates and more with JIRA.

[Robert Nagel]

There are so many options for using async tools and tactics. 

Slack just prompted me to update my list of channels to only show channels with new messages. This will help me be more intentional about checking messages, and save me from scrolling up and down through my channels. 

I also will experiment with using the whiteboard or pre-meeting video so that when the meeting takes place, it can be to align or make decisions as a group. 

[Andi Grey]

The Async Collaboration for Distributed Teams course was incredibly insightful. I've been working remotely for over eight years, and I still learned new things during the course! I am excited to implement the Working Agreements play with my team to help improve how we collaborate so we can show up more intentionally and keep our expectations of each other aligned with our vision. I also plan to incorporate the Confluence-type document in meetings as well as Loom videos to help reduce the length of meetings using pre-work. That way, we save time on synchronous meetings, and our meetings are more effective!

[Sami Shaik]

Async Collaborate for Distributed Teams course really give me an idea of new way of working. Each point is very clear and make sense to adopt in our daily work life.

Surely, I would recommend this course to all my team members and network.

Thanks Atlassian!

[Mai Nguyen]

I'd like to try the new whiteboard tool in Confluence to ensure seamless communication within the Atlassian tool ecosystem that we use. Atlas is new to me. Hence, I'm keen to try this out with my team to provide an overview over all the ongoing projects because until now we are missing what projects our other team mates are working on.

[Adeyinka Onasanya]

I would really be more intentional about doing the pre-work.
Also send out resources early on time to ensure alignment.