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

[Jana Slechtova]

I will look at introducing async pre-work to our weekly team updates. This looks like a good tool for my team, even with Atlas. 

[Jeff Hooper]

(1) I want to replace our daily standups with a tool like Slack, where each team member can submit their quick update in a common thread - for review by the entire team.

(2) I want to implement an ideation/whiteboarding tool (Confluence Whiteboards, if it's available to us now), to bring some organization to our project brainstorming process.

[Quinn Adams]

I noticed on my team at times that we have some long drawn out meetings that could be shortened or even canceled. Two approaches I would lead my team with in order to shorten or even cancel the meetings are:

1. Be intentional by doing the pre work. I could use Loom to create a 5-10 minute video explaining the meeting's topic and the situation that needs to be resolved. Then post it for the team to review and request feedback before the meeting even starts. This provides my team members the chance to review this on their own time asynchronously which results in fewer time spent in the meeting. Maybe instead of Loom, I create a status update on Atlas that then hits the Slack API to send out a message notifying them.

2. I never knew Confluence Whiteboards existed. I am so excited to start using this tool on my time. I loved the fact that users can create Jira tasks directly from the tool itself and hooks up to Jira Management.

[Brandon Haverland]

Two async practices our org has been using:

• We use a Figjam board and the Jira plugin for async agile processes like Backlog Refinement (team members review the issue within the Figjam board and add their vote using one of the many voting plugins).
• We also use Slack's native video sharing functionality for team syncs.

[Craig Oliver]

I would like to use more Mural boards during ideation sessions and record technical sessions and share via global team members.

[Christine Queenie Tungol]

I'm looking forward to using Jiro and Atlas this year. 

[Kuhl]

Most of the time I work remote, so I would like to try the Video-Messages with Loom to quickly give an overview of my work. I´m also looking forward to the whiteboard app in Confluence.

[Terri.Marchon]

I agree that the 5 minute video-messages would be very helpful for assigning pre-work for meetings. More personal than an email and probably more information too.

[Lisa Li]

Pre-work and DACI sounds like the two most valuable items that will really improve my efficiency at work this year.

[Jason Phillips]

Confluence - To have the ability to have tickets converted from a whiteboarding tool and  not have multiple document repositories will greatly assist our team.

Atlas - A central place where all levels of project information can be accessed from will be a great for stakeholders involved

[Bryan Vick]

Two tactics/tools I may use in the future include Confluence and Zoom. I have used Zoom in the past collaboratively to manage projects requiring the participation of other senior staff for the compliance of the state and federal regulations I was managing for our facility. This enabled discourse and the availability of status updates without the need for me to hunt down people or interrupt any ones workflow (including my own). I have not yet used confluence, but I have written policy and procedure for 3 company's that have a similar "encyclopedia of documentation" and look forward to learning the "ins-and-outs" of this powerful tool for personal and professional use.

[Joris]

We are using a combination of Jira and Confluence, but that last one is mostly a documentation application for us. Within Jira we are using "Foxly, Requirements backlog ...." and "Whiteboards for Jira ....". Both to be used in sync and async modus.

[Michael Allen]

Our team has been maintaining and adding features to a customer's website for some time now. Typically, each person on the team has been assigned a work item, and from that point forward until the work item's completion, we typically have very little communication.

Now, our team has been tasked with a complete rewrite of the old website.  We recognize the need for not only improved internal communication, but also the need to engage with the customer more, and enhance visibility in our development process.  To that end, we're looking to use tools such as Atlas, Jira, and Confluence to keep the communication flowing throughout the long-term rewrite project.

[Devanand PR]

HI! I am managing an international team remotely. I find these tips very helpful. My company is already using async collaboration work but there are still more things that can be added to my team step by step. 

I am planning to explore the Built-in whiteboard i Confluence this year.

[Haydee Olivan]

Re: The Atlassian University course on Async Collaboration for Distributed Teams..

1. I'd start by utilizing JWM to include "to do" with the link for the team to join and complete this training. 
2. Next, I'd follow the 7 tips - commit to pre-work exercises, and work with the team to create working agreement to avoid "BURNOUT". 
   

[Carlos Salazar]

Hi!!! i will test Atlas and prework sync meetings on the new organizations im starting to work in.

• Atlas - since they are trying to improove the PMO work and the follow up is part of the problems they are trying to solve. They havent heard before about Atlas, so i mentioned im will make the test myself to have some evidence for further discussions.
• Prework - i realized the meetings are being organized but without structure or clear purpose, so i will try to implement the pre work in order to speed up the meeting time.

Wish me luck!!!

[maddie stark]

we've been using trello and slack to plan 5 mini conferences across Scotland.  We moved  our sycn stand ups to Slack using Slack workflows and our event retros to miro and Slack - using async pre work to do the retro asycn and come together for a much shorter meeting to discuss it.  

Using Trello to keep and over all eye on who's doing what when and how it's  going. 

[Kevin Steele]

So there are two tools that I'm excited to work on for Async collaboration.  

First, I'm excited for Confluence Whiteboard - I'm used to using Miro for async and realtime collaboration.  To have all those options included in my confluence toolset makes it easier to manage my toolbox.

Additionally I'm looking forward to trying Atlas.  I've been in far too many status meetings where you are coming back to sync only to find that people aren't making progress or cannot be succinct about the work done.

[Carlotta Kuhn]

I work for draw.io and our team is spread across Germany and North America which makes "asynch" tools extremely important to us. We use Confluence to track and collaborate during team meetings. On a daily bases we also use google chats to communicate. We have both a main chat and an off-topic chat which cuts down on meeting times because we have the chance to already talk about certain points throughout the day. The use of draw.io whiteboards also helps to make meetings more efficient because we can collaborate on projects during a meeting and add any post-it notes and ideas as they come up.

[mert cuhadaroglu]

Integrated whiteboard is fantastic for brainstorming, decision making and project planning. Status tools which are eliminating/improving status meetings are of great help.

[Fabio Racobaldo _Herzum_]

There some interesting points that could be experimented on my side. For the next future I'd like to try Atlas in order to keep all team aligned on some projects status.

[Lauren Allen]

None of the videos will play for me.  They all show this message.  When using one for the training users (leftover from a training session yesterday) the video shows.  Just not on my account.

[Andrew DeBell]

Hi @Lauren Allen , thanks for letting us know and sorry about that! I've just updated the privacy settings on all these videos. Can you try it again and see if it works for you? 

[Lauren Allen]

Thanks @Andrew DeBell, the videos all work now. Appreciate your help. 

[Sydney Hill]

I'm looking forward to trying the new whiteboard tool in confluence for effective brainstorming and communicating with my coworkers. I'd like to utilize slack as well to stay informed on what's currently going on and what needs to be done within my team without having to individually reach out to everyone.

[nanthe.ulrich]

As evererybody in the team dont have same energy at the same time during the day.
Async collaboration is good to prepare meeting by having key inputs before meeting.it also appropriate to get status update on ongoing work . I plan to use JIRA for project status update and confluence to share more insight on ongoing activty .

[Prasad Chandane]

Two 'async' tactics/tools that, I would like to use effectively going forward:

Messaging: Though we used to have various messaging apps on day to day life e.g. MS Teams, Slack. However, we have to use it efficiently so that, meetings can be avoided.

Trello: Found this tool very much effective by doing certain training and would like to use it going forward for effective management of day to day activities at the customer end.

[Terri.Marchon]

We are working on a way to provide resource usage as well as status updates to management that include project work (SCRUM) as well as initiatives and operational work (KANBAN). Doing the updates async would benefit everyone by eliminating a two hour meeting every week. Although Atlas looks promising we would like to see if we can do it with the tools we already have (Jira and Confluence).

We have built a few project Dashboards in Jira and those were used to provide an single project status update in the weekly meeting. One trouble here is everybody is presenting in a different format. We have standardized on the "what" just not on the "how" of the presentation material. We have a Jira Plan that is also being used to summarize each departments work for common initiatives. The trouble with both of these is you do not see how much each resource is allocated outside of those projects and initiatives in the operational work. In both of these cases the pre-work is critical to having a smooth sync meeting. 

Using a white board to post ideas could benefit the group that is trying to solve our "resource usage across teams" dilemma. We have several remote and several onsite members. We have had two meetings already where we basically discussed the same thing in both. Now we are using email to get consensus on the agenda for the next meeting. A whiteboard or Confluence page would allow us to work on this at our leisure prior to the meeting.