"Teamistry" Season 4 Episode 4...let's discuss (you might win some swag 😎)

[shannyshan]

Teamistry explores the chemistry of teams that achieve the impossible through collaboration. This season takes on a docuseries format as we deep dive into Concorde: the world’s only supersonic passenger plane to have taken to the skies. Concorde is a testament to what happens when teams go beyond borders, egos, and politics to make the impossible, possible.

⭐️ LISTEN & SUBSCRIBE

If you haven't already, check out the conversation around episodes 1, 2, and 3 then respond to our Episode 4 prompts below for a chance to win some Atlassian swag 😎 (we'll randomly select a winner from this post the week of Jan 31). 

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Episode 4, Becoming the Sexiest Flight on Earth prompts: 

Respond to at least one prompt in the comments for a chance to win Atlassian swag!

• What would have appealed most to you about flying on Concorde: the champagne/fancy food; the celebrity sightings; experiencing the engineering feat first-hand; something else?
• “Since Concorde was so unique and many of its parts and design were custom-made, Ricky’s team had to be creative and improvise when solving problems…It was like doing brain surgery with kitchen utensils…” What’s an example of a time your team had to solve a tricky problem with creativity/innovation? How did that collaboration go? Was it successful? Why or why not?

Thanks for listening and participating. 🙌

[John Funk]

I thought I had listened to this and commented before, but I guess not!

The celebrity stuff doesn't much appeal to me, but I would certainly have enjoyed the level of service and fancy food and drink onboard. But mostly the fact that I am flying at Mach 2 and getting there in half the time. That's a feat!

In a Jira related context, my fellow Jira Admin and I were trying to solve a problem to provide a great solution that a team had requested. We used a combination of workflow functions (thanks JMWE!) and automation rules (thanks Automation for Jira!) and API calls (thanks to my co-Admin as I am not a developer!). It was a bit tricky, but we pulled out several Jira utensils to solve the issue. 

[shannyshan]

Thanks @John Funk! Agree that getting somewhere in half the time would be incredible. 🚀

And love the Jira example. What a good example of using lots of tools at your disposal to come up with a creative solution! 

[Dan Breyen]

[Tomislav Tobijas _Koios_]

I've finished listening to the series just this weekend (including part 5) and I must say I was fascinated to find out how this plane was actually engineering brilliance for the time it was constructed 😮
Also, the ability to overcome all the differences between two different nations, two languages, metric systems... Just wow! And congrats to all people involved!

Even though I've flew only a couple of times in my life (so far) and even though I'm not much into airspace and airplanes, after listening to the series I'm really considering to book my next trip somewhere where I could see Concorde on display (bonus would be you could climb aboard 😄). Based on how it was described in the series, it would definitely be amazing to experience everything - that feeling and ability to re-live the environment, eat fancy dishes and see how there are no visible vibrations on liquids despite the fact you're moving over 2000km/h 🤯

[shannyshan]

Thanks for listening and responding @Tomislav Tobijas _Koios_ !! So glad you've enjoyed the series so far. I agree – I've never given much thought to air travel, but working on this podcast has made me fascinated by it all. Truly a feat of teamwork in all ways. 

I hope you get to sit in the Concorde at the museum someday!! You'll have to let us know how it is. 😉

[Omar Mohamed Fathi]

me too

[Saralie S.]

super excited!

[shannyshan]

Yay glad you like the show @Saralie S.!

[Amanda Barber]

Oops, I also thought I had responded to this post earlier!

I think for me, I'd have loved the opportunity to "time travel" - the thought of musicians being able to play two shows in one day was really fascinating, ha!

As a non-dev on a development team, I feel like so much of what our engineers do is like doing brain surgery with kitchen utensils. I feel like we're constantly trying to stay ahead of tech debt (or at least not drown it), while also trying to improve our product and meet the constantly changing needs of educators. While it sometimes feels necessary to improvise, I love how quickly my team can change gears and change directions. This is in part due to our somewhat Agile tendencies, as well as our Scrumban methods.

[shannyshan]

So true - thanks @Amanda Barber! Agree the "time travel" is very appealing! haha And love your perspective as a non-dev on a dev team. 

[Omar Mohamed Fathi]

true

[Mirek]

What would have appealed most to you about flying on Concorde? I think that the biggest thing no matter which plane we are on is the takeoff and landing. So much adrenaline, feeling the speed all of the noise is worth it.. That is something that you cannot experience elsewhere. Especially on that kind of plane. Food, champagne? Who cares about it? You can go to a good restaurant for that or buy it when you are on ground in a good shop. Celebrities? Ugh.. :) I do not think that people sold houses to buy tickets for Concorde to see Britney Spears :)

On the other hand hand we cannot forget about concerns.. age of the aircraft, huge cost of the maintenance and of course overall safety. Not investing in that, not improving things always end up in a problem.

It is like buying/using software but not making sure that you have active support and do not care to upgrade it. Using it for some time is pretty exiting but overtime you notice that you cannot get over all of issues and you just have to stop using it. 

Concord was having similar history. It was build in 60's flying few decades but the crash and all the concerns including 9/11 of course caused that people started to think about consequences. And here we are in 2023 and so far no bigger plans to have similar aircraft that would take people in "time travel". 

Of course Concorde showed that everything is possible, that with teamwork and brainstorming is possible to build it actually without technology that we are having right now. And that is the beauty of it!

[shannyshan]

Thanks @Mirek ! Haha love the perspective of being most excited about takeoff and landing - so true that those pieces are the most unique aspects of flying on Concorde...food, champagne, and celebrities can be experienced on the ground ;)

And great parallel to active support/upkeep for software! Thanks for sharing. 

[Fabio Racobaldo _Herzum_]

When you are faced with a futuristic project, visionary in some respects, you usually stop to observe the result and not the path that led to its creation.

From my point of view, I always try to visualize the efforts, the passion, the moments of discouragement and the excitement in seeing the result achieved.

Each project, regardless of the objective, is a challenge against oneself in which a group of people work together driven by their passion and the desire to overcome their limits.
This series shows you the path and not just the end goal! The same path that each of us sees when we release a product!

[shannyshan]

Love that philosophy, @Fabio Racobaldo _Herzum_! A great reminder that the journey is often more important than the destination. 

[Alex Koxaras _Relational_]

Hi @shannyshan !

What would have appealed most to you about flying on Concorde: the champagne/fancy food; the celebrity sightings; experiencing the engineering feat first-hand; something else?

I think that the most appealing thing would be the speed, as well as the face that you experienced first hand this innovation! I think that this would have been both fantastic and terrifying in the same time!

“Since Concorde was so unique and many of its parts and design were custom-made, Ricky’s team had to be creative and improvise when solving problems…It was like doing brain surgery with kitchen utensils…” What’s an example of a time your team had to solve a tricky problem with creativity/innovation? How did that collaboration go? Was it successful? Why or why not?

Our team always try to be creative and to solve complicated problem using out of the box functionalities for all Atlassian's products, especially Jira. The collaboration on our team most of the times is successful and we manage to solve our customer's problem. There have been times when our collab wasn't the greatest and I can only blame our poor communication at that specific point due to work overload.

[Mirek]

Yeah I am also a fan of using mostly OOTB features to solve problems. The goal is important but It is good to not overcomplicate things.

[shannyshan]

Awesome, love that @Alex Koxaras _Relational_! Especially the focus you have on the customer when building out of the box solutions. Thanks for listening and sharing!

[Michiel Schuijer]

What would have appealed most to you about flying on Concorde: the champagne/fancy food; the celebrity sightings; experiencing the engineering feat first-hand:

• All of the above!

What’s an example of a time your team had to solve a tricky problem with creativity/innovation? How did that collaboration go? Was it successful? Why or why not?

• Since our team was split into smaller teams after a reorg, we have (had) to work together in changing the way we work and also move around a lot of our tools, updating tags, owners, documentation, rename/create new slack channels, move between cloud subscriptions and more. This requires us to collaborate in various ways, via different tools (some want to use only tool x, while others want to use y.) Meetings to do hand-overs and discuss the way forward are scarce, operational work still needs to be done and takes up/over most of the time, and we are facing challenges which feel like we need to build a Concorde of sorts. We have not overcome this yet, but I sympathize with the Teamistry podcasts a lot.

Concorde also brings back memories for me, to my first job at an international company that had me visit the UK often. I had to stay regularly at the Heathrow Park hotel and the Concorde was still taking off right next to it, and it would either wake me or impress me with the huge noise it made, taking off with a boom.

[Amanda Barber]

Oh wow, that's so cool that you got to see it "up close"!

[shannyshan]

Thanks for sharing @Michiel Schuijer! And hope your team continues to make progress in the way you work together post-reorg. That's always a tricky thing, but it sounds like y'all are going about it in a very thoughtful way. Our Team Playbook may come in handy along the way - lots of practices/exercises to help get teams working better together. 

And that is incredible that you were so close to the Concorde flights back in the day!! ✈️

[shannyshan]

@Michiel Schuijer Good news! You're our winner this month 🥳 Reach out to me at swinter@atlassian.com to receive your code for our swag store! - Shannon 

[John Funk]

Congrats @Michiel Schuijer !

[Amanda Barber]

Congrats!

[Brant Schroeder]

What would have appealed most to you about flying on Concorde: the champagne/fancy food; the celebrity sightings; experiencing the engineering feat first-hand; something else?

The speed of the flight.  I love the example of Phil Collins playing in two different stadiums on one day.  It is impressive that he was able to play once in Europe and again in the US.

[shannyshan]

Totally, @Brant Schroeder! Agree the speed would have been the ultimate novelty. Thanks for sharing!

[Matthew]

Isn't this neat! I never these podcasts existed!

[shannyshan]

Glad you like them @Matthew !

[Charly _DEISER_]

I didn't know either, I really like their approach to the content.

[Tommy Augustine]

I like these podcasts!

[shannyshan]

Thanks for listening, @Tommy Augustine!

[Brant Schroeder]

I am glad I was able to learn about them.  Have been going back and listening to them.  Issue is there are not enough of them.  I will run out very quickly as I have been listening to them on my walks and when I drive.  Are there other Atlassian podcasts like this?

[shannyshan]

Love that you're a power listener @Brant Schroeder! We have another Atlassian podcast called Work Check where we debate whether common workplace practices are still working well for teams. Different than Teamistry, but a fun listen, too! 

[Amanda Barber]

I highly recommend Work Check! Glad I stumbled on Teamistry, too, but I started with Work Check. :) 

[Kristján Geir Mathiesen]

Growing up hearing and seeing the Concord in the news made it somewhat of a "unicorn". The Concord has always had some kind of special aurora around it, at least in my mind. Just being able to travel in it, would have been very special to me.

[Tommy Augustine]

Thanks for these podcasts! Love Concorde

[Sam Nadarajan]

Wow, even though there wasn't much spoken of regarding the development of the Concorde in this episode, I was still captivated by the external factors and perceptions that changed as a result of the initial successful flights!

• Experiencing the engineering feat firsthand. To me, Concorde is the celebrity, if Taylor Swift was on the plane I'd be like meh. Seeing the curvature of the earth would have been pretty neat. I know cruising altitude can vary between 30-40k feet, but to be at 60,000 feet and see the curvature of the earth as is - and not through some 360 degree camera or fisheye lens would have been so cool!
• When doing a rewrite for a project my coworker and I were faced with a new tech stack that our company was experimenting with (I like to say we were the first to implement the new framework at the company on an official basis) so we had to figure things out on the fly. Looking back there are some things we would have done differently (but isn't that true for most code) but hey, it still works. When COVID hit our church was significantly impacted (no minister, just a bunch of young people who wanted to keep going safely and assure our congregants) so I remember we facilitated a whole church service with a skeleton crew in 2020 for about 3 months. It took 3 different people to facilitate the entirety of the service, helped us realize what we could do without, helped us do multiple tapings in different outfits, etc. Those were some great times! I always say limitations can lead to innovations.

[David A]

Hi everyone!

I am starting with the podcasts and the truth is that I was totally unaware of the story behind Concorde. Great example of collaboration.

[Courtney - TechTime]

Definitely the fancy food!