Company Values and Technology

My head is still buzzing after joining the Atlassian Open in Vienna. Atlassian is a company that provides software tools to help teams “unleash their full potential”. Atlassian is also known for their refreshingly direct company values, such as "Open company, no bullshit". But they don't just publish their values to sound cool. They develop and openly share people practices that are designed to drive their values and enable teamwork.

 

The reason I went to their event was to find out how their technology products, like Trello and Confluence, could help organizations to create their desired values and culture.

 

Perhaps not surprisingly, I didn’t find simple solutions in the products. Technology tools alone don’t necessarily create the culture you want. However, there was a lot to learn about how people, practices and tools together have an impact on culture and team effectiveness.

 

For example, I learnt about the Atlassian Team Playbook, which Atlassian developed for their own organization and then decided to share openly with everyone. To go a bit deeper, I chatted with Atlassians such as Dominic Price, Leisa Reichelt and Phil Oye about how Atlassian really brings their values to life inside the company and in their products. I even picked up some practical tips for using Trello, which I can implement immediately in my own work.

 

One reason that I'm obsessing about company values lately is because of this workshop, Bringing Values to Life in Technology Enabled Organisations, which I'm offering together with Stu Wigham. I'm looking forward to sharing in the workshop the inspiration, tips and examples I gathered from the Atlassian Open. If you are interested, join us in October at the 2019 EODF Conference.