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

[Sam Thing]

I plan to use Atlas and Loom to cut down on unnecessary meetings. By linking Confluence pages, Whiteboard, and Jira Work Management, we can work better and share information more easily.

[Ted Nieblas]

WE are trying to find a solution to bring our operational teams into alignment with our SW teams. Our operational teams do not use Jira and are primarily in Microsoft Office and Teams for collaboration. They spend a lot of times covering task updates in status meetings and use Excel for the most part.

I want to try the following tools/techniques to resolve this:

• Implement Jira Work Management for non engineering teams
• Utilize Atlas for status updates
• Integrate with both Slack and MS Teams to increase visibility
• Provide training/mentoring to help them get used to asynchronous methods.

[Mark Wedel]

As we have offices in different locations async is without a doubt the way forward, and the two main tools to try out will be confluence and atlas.

[Tyler Sellhorn]

Two async tools I plan to try with our team this year are:

• Running the DACI Team Play in a Confluence document without the large group synchronous meeting component
  • We might still use short one-off videoconferences, but decision making and deep work are best done individually without interuptions.
• Shift Status Meetings into Atlas instead of large group video conferences
  • Keeping status updates short, prompted and public keeps everyone aligned in our own time instead of needing to talk synchronously

[matt]

Use Asynch for ideation of marketing campaigns and for OKRs with whiteboard - use trello/jira for Asynch updates on the OKRs

[Dawn Carrington]

I will aim to eliminate more sync meetings and do the pre-work, to save time, and agree with my team and leadership when we get back on messages, so that I can turn off notifications on Slack and Email. I also intend to try out Confluence and Trello (hopefully these two sync in the same way that Jira Work Management does?).

[Schuuudi]

Lisa Yeager addresses the very same points that are bothering us right now.

I will try the Atlas tool to reduce the number of sync meetings we have. I will also try out Whiteboard. The feature to create direct tickets out of it would be sooo helpful!

[Azimi-Fard, Arvin]

2 tools that I want to use or more precisely use differently in my daily work:

- Confluence Pages as the "Deliverable" itself

- Video message to give Details and Context to the page

[Krista]

First, I want to try out Atlas. I've used Trello previously and we're starting to use it as a team, and it looks like Atlas has some great potential.

Second, I want to continue to explore Trello and how else we could be leveraging it. 

[Chris Ellis]

Looking to introduce the following two practices for our team:
- Adopting Confluence and moving away from scattered approach to documentation
- Ensuring we leverage more pre-work to unlock more time for alignment and discussion on how we best support each other.

[Joel Maxwell]

We are planning for some field work. As we are all in different locations with set roles. We gather the data and consumables we need for the workload. Keep in touch as we lead up to the day. So we know where each person is at and we are set to go 

[Felipe Oliveira]

As I already faced some Lean Manufacturing and Office working, I agree the well planned agenda is a good way to assure activities will be done with efficiency. A second tool we are studying more to implement here is based on MIRO tool (desing thinking). Hear team's voice in order to feel opportunities, dreams and how to become they true is a good way to keeps everybody focused once the plan bleongs to every team.

[Cathy Harper]

Not all the tools mentioned in the course are available in my work environment, but we have alternatives that perform the same functions. I plan to make more use of tools to track project task status. This will cut down on the number of emails back and forth on the team. I will also look into options for recording brief videos, or narrating demos that could be shared to promote team offerings.

[Phil Kirschner]

I am going to try and spend more time recording answers to questions I receive in my role as an expert for easier and asynchronous distribution, but also to prevent me from having to re-answer similar questions in the future. I am also going to continue learning about decision making frameworks to apply them to projects and associated deliverables.

[Tyler Sellhorn]

This is the way Phil! I now have this to share when people have questions about documentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQiS9SjF-zw

[Josh Mihok]

I plan to investigate Jira Work Management as an alternative to Monday.com for non-software project task tracking.

I plan to use the Working Agreements playbook on a current project and encourage my team to try this out as well as we continue in the post-pandemic hybrid work environment.

[Bob Hannau]

Two tactics I'm looking to experiment with are Confluence and meeting pre-work.

[Liam Nelson]

I'm particularly excited to try the Confluence whiteboard for brainstorming, as I have seen the benefit of virtual whiteboards in creative and marketing work really well but never with such elegant through lines to project planning and deliverables/tasking. I love getting hands on with product, so being a Creative PM at Atlassian is a great opportunity to learn a new tool set (to me) that feels familiar nonetheless (coming most recently from a Miro/Airtable tool set). Additionally, I am going to give Loom a try as I haven't used pre-recorded video in an async modality before and that's intriguing. I have seen potential with Loom for sales enablement in a previous life, but why not interiorly for teams and stakeholders? Love this stuff.

[Joyce Anne Malit]

1. Creating the pre-work, give the stakeholders ample time to ponder and provide their answers and set up a sync up meeting (if required) later if there are any doubts.  Make sync meetings a low priority when trying to get information. Can I get what I need via messaging them on Teams? should be on top of my mind.

2. Brainstorming via whiteboarding is also a good way to get some ideas asynchronously and without giving much pressure to provide feedback in a short period of time that sync meetings warrant. 

[Roz]

Hi TW Lab:)

I am planning to use Atlas for project status updates, both for stakeholders on big projects, and also for our Product Owners to flag release information on our product iterations. Hopefully they will be more confident giving short updates linking to real work to allow those that just need the high level to get quick insight, but also give access for others who are looking for in depth info or specific data to share with broader teams. 

We are also using Jira for initiative approvals [using 'request' issue types] to allow the senior management teams to respond asynchronously to requests and in doing so, we are actually promoting faster response times because no-one has to try find a meeting time for multiple people across multiple time zones before getting the request and data into the approval flow. 

[Christine Fontenot]

I've used Miro for async ideation, but since I learned how to use Confluence earlier this year, I'm excited to try the Confluence whiteboard.  I'm also seeing real potential benefits from trying Atlas.

[Dale N]

Using confluence to take notes during stand up meetings to save time and work async.

Using the whiteboard for brainstorming and planning. Really helpful working remotely.

[Wayne Fisher]

Atlas looks promising but I *really* should be able to link Atlas goals to Jira initiatives

[Raphael]

I find async tools are great as usually team members work in a different location or outside of traditional office hours. I want to try, or use again:

- whiteboards for brainstorming and project planning.

- use short videos to share ideas and get some feedback.

- use Slack to share recent work done by myself or my team mates.

[Randi Krueger]

I intend to use the team agreement to ensure we find the right times to collaborate and slowly erase the status meeting by leveraging our current collaboration tools. 

[Shane H]

Current Tactic or Tool - MS Teams and Channels

The tool I have experimented with this year is MS Teams and Channels to communicate with different stakeholder groups on a specific project.  The results have been mixed.  Great for communicating with core team members, but the more removed the stakeholder is from the project, the less responsive they are to an @ mention in an MS Teams channel. 

For example, I recently required senior stakeholder approval of a recommendation.  I posted the item in a channel in the Teams site dedicated to the project and didn't receive a response.  It was only when I resent the same message via Outlook that the senior stakeholders responded. 

So, in summary, I am still unsure of the value of MS Teams as a communication tool beyond core project team members.  I would suggest that this is due to the legacy culture whereby most communication is still conducted via email and there has not been a directive to use MS Teams.

New Tactic to try - Replace status update meeting with asynch communication
The other technique or tool I want to experiment with this year is using a-synch communication for status update meetings.  Not yet sure of the best tools to use to do this (if we have an Atlas licence, I will give it a try!), however regardless of the tools chosen, the first option for status meetings should be asynchronous.