Unleashing Team Potential with Workflow Efficiency

I recently teamed up with one of Gliffy's partners, E7 Solutions, to talk about how teams can make the most of Atlassian solutions to collaborate more effectively and meet their goals. 

As we move into a new year, it’s the perfect time to evaluate your own team’s processes and identify areas where you can remove roadblocks that hold you back from reaching your full potential.

You can watch the full webinar or keep reading for some of the key takeaways from our discussion.

What’s Wrong with How We’re Working?

Before we explore ways to unleash your team’s potential, we need to understand the problems that might be preventing you from reaching it. Here are a few common roadblocks that Atlassian’s system of work can help you solve.

We Struggle to Find Information

How many valuable working hours have you spent searching multiple sources, possibly even within multiple tools, to find information you need? When work happens in a variety of channels, not having a centralized location for important information reduces efficiency.

Work Happens in Silos

A lack of visibility into what other teams or departments are working on can lead to decreased efficiency as it takes more time to communicate information about shared goals and processes.

Sometimes, working in silos can break down team or organizational dynamics so thoroughly it’s difficult to get things done even with additional time.

Knowledge Isn’t Documented

If knowledge isn’t documented in an accessible location, losing one colleague can cause a ripple effect throughout the entire team as important knowledge and the ability to complete certain processes might be lost.

We’re Still Adjusting to Asynchronous Work

While great strides have been made to adjust to asynchronous work, many organizations are still working to find a balance between traditional in-person workplace dynamics and a new style of work that empowers remote teammates.

How Can Atlassian’s System of Work Help?

Atlassian’s system of work provides a holistic approach to work management that helps teams in all areas of an organization collaborate more effectively among themselves and with each other.

Many think of Atlassian as “just Jira” when in reality, it can offer much more. Atlassian’s suite of products include:

• Knowledge management solutions (Confluence)
• Product development solutions (Jira Product Discovery)
• Executive strategy solutions (Jira Align)
• IT operations and support solutions (Jira Service Management)

These all come together to create a system that helps teams:

• Reduce time spent searching for information by 50%
• Reduce irrelevant interruptions by 35%
• Reduce product duration and time to market by 25%

Example: Confluence and Jira Service Management

One specific example of how Atlassian solutions work together to help you unlock workflow efficiency is through the integration of Confluence and Jira Service Management (JSM).

When you create your JSM Portal or Help Center for your customers, you can integrate it with a Confluence space that provides resources to help them find answers before they submit a ticket.

Not only can users search for information related to their issue in the Help Center, but request forms can also suggest content that may help them solve their problem based on information they input.

JSM helps you track how often Confluence content solves a user’s issue, preventing them from submitting a ticket—this is called ticket deflection, and it provides a useful measure for determining the effectiveness of your content. When changes need to be made, anyone with access to the Confluence space can contribute to documentation, even if they don’t have a seat as a JSM agent.

To see the integration of Confluence and Jira Service Management in action, watch our full webinar with E7 Solutions.

4 Best Practices for Workflow Efficiency and Better Teamwork

Make Your Processes Prettier

It’s not just aesthetics—making your internal and external resources visually appealing has a real impact on their effectiveness. For example, Atlassian’s own research shows Confluence pages with images or other visuals consistently receive better engagement, suggesting that they’re easier for team members to understand and use.

Another way to increase efficiency through visual appeal on the customer side is by building dynamic and conditional fields into your JSM forms. These types of fields allow forms to adapt in real time as a user fills them out, only showing relevant fields based on their input.

Audit Content to Keep Everything Feeling Fresh

Make your help center more efficient by continuously monitoring and optimizing it based on the way your customers are using it.

Confluence page analytics can help you determine which articles are or are not being read. Jira Service Management can record user feedback to help you track which articles have helped deflect tickets. With this data in mind, you can examine which topics are still generating tickets and consider adding those to your documentation.

Every month or quarter, it’s a good idea to schedule a page cleanup where you consolidate information, add information when necessary, and remove pages that aren’t being used. This will help you keep your content relevant and easy to navigate.

Manage Information by Mapping It Out

If you are creating a brand-new knowledge base, a great way to get started is by mapping out its structure in a visual format, like a diagram. This will give you ideas for how to organize your Confluence page tree to make sure everything is navigable and eliminate content gaps.

Start Super-Fast with Templates

E7 Solutions offers templates to get you set up with a scalable knowledge management solution fast, including forms, automations, and more. Their assistance can reduce the time it takes for your team to start providing more effective service.

Get More Tips for Great Teamwork

Want to learn more about how to work efficiently across teams and departments? A great first step is our guide to building documentation your team will actually want to use. Then, you can check out our blog for more knowledge management and collaboration tips and best practices.

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