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#55 – Confluence and the Atlassian System of Work
Matt Reiner
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Today, we’re sharing best practices to keep your Confluence site spook-free, introducing better content pickers in Confluence Automations—and have you tried nesting elements using drag-and-drop?
Let's dive in!
What’s the Atlassian System of Work, and How Does Confluence Fit Into It?
Great teamwork happens when ideas flow freely, plans come together smoothly, and everyone stays on the same page. That’s the goal of Atlassian’s System of Work—a framework designed to streamline how teams collaborate and execute projects using Atlassian tools. At the heart of this system is Confluence, the collaboration powerhouse we all know and love! (You know you do 😄)
Confluence fits seamlessly into three major stages of Atlassian’s System of Work:
In Ideation, Confluence whiteboards spark creativity and capture ideas in a collaborative, visual format.
In Execution, Confluence organizes the "why" and "how" behind the work, integrating with tools like Jira to track progress.
In Alignment, Confluence acts as the central hub for knowledge, keeping everyone on track and informed.
This holistic approach makes Confluence more than a tool—it’s a platform that powers smarter, more connected teamwork. Let’s explore this.
Ideation: Sparking Creativity with Confluence Whiteboards
Every great project starts with a spark of inspiration. The ideation phase is where creativity thrives—but it can also get messy when ideas are scattered across sticky notes, emails, or random chat threads. Confluence whiteboards solve this problem by giving your team a collaborative, digital space to brainstorm visually and work together in real-time.
Dynamic Brainstorming: Confluence Whiteboards are an open canvas for creativity. Teams can sketch ideas, create mind maps, and jot down concepts as they come. Use sticky notes, shapes, and stamps to bring ideas to life.
Collaboration in Real-Time: Whether your team is sitting together in a room or spread across time zones, Confluence whiteboards make it easy to collaborate. Multiple team members can contribute synchronously or asynchronously, offering suggestions, voting on others’ ideas, and connecting concepts.
Seamless Transition to Documentation: The best part? Once your brainstorming session wraps up, you can turn the whiteboard into a Confluence page with just a click. This captures the ideas in an organized format, making them ready for planning and execution.
Imagine you’re planning a product launch. Your team can use a Confluence whiteboard to outline potential features, map customer journeys, and brainstorm marketing strategies—all in one shared space. No sticky notes lost in the shuffle, no ideas overlooked.
Execution: Turning Plans Into Action
Once the big ideas are locked in and planned in Jira, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and get to work. Confluence becomes the backbone of this phase, connecting ideas to action and making execution efficient.
Centralized Project Collaboration: Use Confluence to create detailed project plans where everyone can communicate and get project updates.
Integration with Jira: Link your Confluence pages to Jira issues to bridge the gap between planning and doing. Teams can reference project requirements in Confluence while tracking tasks and deadlines in Jira.
All Your Tools in One Place: Easily connect all your tools, like Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox, and more, to bring all your work together in Confluence. Smart Links in Confluence make it your single source of truth and collaboration, even with information spread across tools.
For example, if a marketing team is running a campaign, they can use Confluence to document the strategy and link it to Trello boards or Jira tasks to track deliverables like ad copy, social media posts, and analytics setup.
Alignment: Keeping Everyone on the Same Page
Alignment is what keeps teams focused and efficient. Confluence ensures that everyone, from the project lead to the newest team member, is working toward the same goals with clear visibility into what’s happening.
A Single Source of Truth: Confluence houses all your team’s important information—goals, decisions, updates, and more. By centralizing your documentation, you eliminate silos and ensure everyone has access to the same data.
Teamwide Transparency: Keep everyone informed by embedding updates, project dashboards, or even Loom videos into Confluence pages. This makes it easy to communicate changes or share progress without holding extra meetings.
Cross-Functional Collaboration: Whether it’s developers, marketers, or execs, Confluence makes it easy for cross-functional teams to work together. Everyone can access the same page to provide feedback, ask questions, or share insights.
For instance, during a product rollout, leadership can share strategic updates on a Confluence page, while engineering and customer success teams contribute their insights and action items—all in one place.
The Atlassian System of Work at Work
At it’s heart, the Atlassian System of Work is really a framework to help real teams do their best work every day:
Product Teams: Use Confluence whiteboards to brainstorm features, then turn those ideas into specs and link them to Jira for development.
Marketing Teams: Plan campaigns visually, document strategies in Confluence, and keep stakeholders informed with live progress updates.
Leadership Teams: Share goals and strategic updates with the entire company using Confluence pages and blogs, making priorities clear across departments.
With Confluence’s part in the Atlassian System of Work, you’re not just organizing your team’s work—you’re empowering them to do their best work, together.
Want more tips on how to make Confluence work for you? Check out our Confluence Collaboration Hub for expert advice on collaboration and documentation.
Confluence News
Streamline Your Data with Confluence’s New Features
Confluence databases just got smarter with two new features: simple calculations and numbered entries.
With simple calculations, you can perform sums, averages, counts, and more directly in your database. Forget exporting to spreadsheets—calculate totals, track budgets, or analyze data right within Confluence. Just click "Calculate" under any numeric field to get started.
Numbered entries make it easy to keep large datasets organized by automatically assigning unique row numbers. This ensures clarity and simplifies navigation. Enable it by heading to your view settings, selecting “Table,” and toggling on “Number entries.”
These updates make data management faster and more efficient, saving you time and reducing reliance on external tools. Whether you're tracking projects or crunching numbers, Confluence keeps everything in one place.
Share Your Confluence Company Hub and Win Big!
Show off your Confluence Company Hub and enter to win one of five $1,000 electronic gift cards. Atlassian is inviting users to submit their customized hubs to inspire the community and gain recognition. Your submission could even be featured in the Company Hub Gallery!
To participate, create or customize a hub that reflects your branding and centralizes key information, then submit it through the Atlassian Community or via email.
The contest runs from now until December 13, 2024. Winners will be selected based on creativity and utility, so let your hub shine!
From K15t
Three Cheers—and a New Live Stream—for Confluence Admins!
Check out our recent live stream—or share it with your favorite admin—to discover all the latest enhancements that make Confleunce administration and collaboration even better.
