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

[JULIAN FRANCISCO HERNANDEZ MONROY]

Async colaboration sounds like a easy goal to learn and very difficult to master. Remember the COVID; when some of your coworkers took several hours in answering any communication, and the working cycle became an uncertainty. Things have improved, but you need really commited teams and supporting staff.

[Addison Knox]

As a game developer working on my portfolio with a small indie team, I plan to implement the following two async tactics/tools this year as I master the Atlassian suite of tools:
1. Pre-Meeting Video Summaries: I’ll create short video summaries before meetings to set the context and outline the agenda. This will help ensure that our limited synchronous time is used effectively for decision-making and discussions, rather than catching everyone up. This approach will be particularly useful for my friends who come and go from projects, as they can stay updated at their convenience.

2. Confluence for Documentation: Using Confluence to document our project’s progress, ideas, and decisions. This tool will allow all freelancers and team members to access and contribute to the project asynchronously, ensuring that everyone is on the same page without needing constant real-time communication.

[Sean Louis berry]

This year, I’m planning to roll out two async strategies with my team to improve how we work together:

1. Async Pre-Work Before Meetings
   Why: I want our meetings to focus on real discussions and decision-making instead of just going over and over the same info. By having everyone review documents or complete specific tasks before meetings, we’ll come in ready to talk about ideas and make decisions. It should make our time together more productive.
   How: To make this happen, I’ll share agendas, documents, or tasks through tools like Confluence or Google Docs a few days ahead. Team members can then contribute their thoughts asynchronously, so when we meet, we can dive right into important discussions and figure out next steps.

2. Using Jira for Task Updates and Progress Tracking
   Why: I’m aiming to cut down on constant status meetings while keeping everyone in the loop. By using Jira for async communication, team members can update their progress when it’s convenient for them, and everyone can stay informed without needing extra meetings.
   How: We’ll make Jira the go-to for tracking all project tasks. Team members will provide detailed updates, and I’ll encourage linking to relevant resources, like Confluence pages, directly within Jira tasks. This way, we can collaborate asynchronously and reduce the need for repetitive 'real-time' check-ins.

[Melina Maccio]

We struggle to conduct effective meetings, so everything related to agendas and async pre-work is definitely on my to-do list. My top two priorities are introducing Confluence Pages and better Jira management. 

[Jasmin Salvacion]

Working in a small group was sometimes tricky when in terms of how you will make sure that everyone is aligned and aware on what is the current updates on the system/apps/processes or whatever is going on with the company. I believe that using confluence and miro would be very helpful to make sure that everything is documented properly

[Jylian Ramsey]

I would have to say that my teams already use a lot of asynchronous tactics, but we didn't know it. I believe discussing the types of async communication and putting a known label on the types of communication that we use and understanding the benefits of this communication would be super helpful. That's not necessarily a tactic in itself, but it's something we should try.

The next thing I'd like to try with my teams is completing async pre-work. This would ensure we are using synced time wisely and giving the appropriate space to discuss priority topics in depth.

[Toby Dudson]

Using confluence pages pre meetings to establish key points rather than have everyone trying to talk.

Also using Jira work management seems an effective way to organise projects and keep everyone up to date on how things are progressing without the need for constant update meetings.

[Toby Ethan Dudson]

Using the Jira toolset can be a very effective way to manage projects and keep everyone in the loop without the need for constant meetings. Using a confluence page in the early stages of a project can help to brainstorm ideas effectively without Timezone restraints on meetings.

[Michał Zalewski]

We starts working on Jira, Confluence and Atlas to manage SaaS product from business development, product development to marketing. We currently use Atlas and Jira to manage our first projects and works awesome! 😍 We will onboarding all our whole team in this year! 🥳

[William Hurtak]

Async prework and collaboration are tools that I will be using in the upcoming year. I will shift my mindset of "respond right away" to being more intentional with my work time to effectively collaborate with my team. 

[Angus Beath]

Pre-work for meetings is a critical asynchronous piece of work we are focusing on. There is only a short time available for in-person meetings, so having the prep work, and the bulk of the early thinking completed is really important. 

The other area is introducing commentary on documents - either through Confluence or via (gasp!) SharePoint. We are split as a company between these. Then reviewing those comments to discern the next steps and to build the agenda for a synchronous meeting.

[farbod shadman]

We've just started working with Jira and it's already making a great difference in our asynchronous work. It reduced the number of meetings we used to have just to check the tasks list we have and their priority.
We're still using old-fashioned meetings to describe a task or onboard a new member to the team and this costs a lot of time and money. I think using Confluence is our next step so we can learn to store information in Pages instead of talking about them. Some parts of our work needs a visual presentation and maybe creating short videos can be a good way to communicate asynchronously.

[Raymond Parker]

For the upcoming team project I will be working on, most if not all interactions will not be able to be had for the duration of the project. It will conist of a multiple people working through different schedules. This will require the use of Asyncronis communication for us to achieve a working product by our deadlines. I beleive using direct communications like discord will be foundational to how we communicate with eachother. For tasks and updates, use of a SCRUM board and dashboards with pre created filters will help organize and show what tasks still need to be done. 

[Vikas Sharma]

We tried confluence and loom as async pre-work to craft Team agreement.

[Noah Worden]

I'm Noah Worden, and I intend to use Trello in more of my team-based projects more often.

[Alex Castro]

One tactic for "async" to try with my team, will be integrating our team google space with the Atlas updates. Also, including more videos (loom) for additional details.

[Charles Jordan Barfield]

I am pursuing my bachelors in Game Design, and next month we will begin our biggest project yet. It will be a team effort, and I plan to use the (1.) work management task list in Jira to complete the project on time. Since my colleagues are spread across the United States and even internationally, we need to work asynchronously. The work management feature will help us by clearly listing tasks that need to be done, those in progress, and those completed. Additionally, with the ability to record your desktop on (2.) Confluence using a Loom video, I can easily ask my teammates for feedback on a specific feature or mechanic I’ve implemented.

[Natalie Clark]

Confluence and Jira (combining the two) is one of the tools I am going to use with my team this year. I am doing so because it is built around productivity and seeing the overall components needed to build the product we are designing. I am going to use it by assigning me and my team's tasks for the product and regularly review the tasks and their completion time to see if there needs to be any reviewing regarding the efficiency.
   Video meetings will also be utilized because everyone in my team are very busy people, we essentially only have time to work from home. We will implement this by having a set time on the weekend, but will be flexible as there isn't too many of us. 

[Payne Morris]

The two tools I will be trying with my team are the Atlas tool and the messaging app Slack. The reason I chose to use Slack is to cut down on meeting times. While yes, meetings can address problems and ideas faster, there are always ideas and problems that will surface after the meeting. Say we address how the team is going to go about making a jumping attack in the game, after the meeting, we work on it and try to implement it. However, a big problem may arise in a teammate's personal life or the jump attack might require more time. Slack can help in the fact that we can communicate with our teammates quickly. The reason why I choose the Atlas tool is that it can remind you how the activity is going and can show you the prediction of if a project will be delivered on time. It also allows stakeholders to display reasons why the progress of the project is the way it is. So when my project is at risk, paused, or offtrack. I can see why it is that way due to the reasoning our stakeholders left.

[Ebony Cobb]

I agree with doing the async prework. This is a way to have more organized meetings with the team. This also gives individual teammates the motivation to write down their own opinions so it can be addressed once everyone is together again. Atlas is also another great async due to the status being in real time, that can also help everyone speak in real time. In most cases the questions some of the teammates have written down would have already been answered. That can keep the same questions from arising in the meetings.

[Ebony Cobb]

The async tools give an opportunity for everyone to be on the same page, but also help a slower process. This makes sure that the outcome isn't rushed and the team takes their time

[David Blakley]

The first would be using jira as it allows for me tracking data and knowing when deadlines are and how long it may take while having all members informed. My second is the documents that you can make in confluence as they can be shared with the organization and be updated by anyone with permissions while also seeing other debates in comments.

[George Adly]

I think Jira is a great tool for async status updates.

I believe async prework is very important to make meetings more efficient and productive.

[fedros mohseni]

I think we should have a good understanding of working asynchronous on a project. So, i think if we establish two tactics in our time can help to improve our team performance.

using status updates and do pre-works activity can help to stay updated about what is happening exactly in the project

[Elin Mars]

I aim to use async tools at my new job, such as Confluence in order to share ideas with teammates when working in a remote environment.