Confluence whiteboards for project management
Delivering a successful project takes hard work, especially when managing cross-functional teams. From brainstorming ideas to prioritizing tasks and keeping stakeholders informed, project managers juggle countless moving parts. The biggest challenges are turning big-picture plans into clear, actionable steps and keeping everyone on the same page.
Confluence whiteboards remove these hurdles by offering a flexible digital workspace where teams can brainstorm, organize, and execute. Whether you're guiding discussions or organizing tasks, online whiteboards help you move seamlessly from idea to action — without missing a beat.
Discover how Confluence whiteboards can transform the way you and your team communicate, collaborate, and bring ideas to life.
Bring cross-functional teams together with facilitation tools
Managing cross-functional teams means ensuring everyone has a voice, stays aligned, and contributes to the team’s goals. Confluence whiteboards help by providing facilitation tools that make real-time collaboration easy and productive.
Follow me cursor
Focus your team's attention when presenting ideas with the Follow me cursor. By keeping your cursor visible to all collaborators, you can guide your team to the most important details in real time.
This tool is particularly helpful when highlighting key sections of a project roadmap or walking through stakeholder responsibilities to ensure everyone understands their roles. It reduces distractions and keeps discussions on track, making collaborative sessions productive and focused.
Voting
Make decisions faster and more inclusive with built-in Voting tools. Voting helps project managers simplify prioritization by giving team members a chance to weigh in on the most impactful ideas.
For example, use voting to decide which improvements to implement first or rank potential concepts for a campaign. Voting encourages participation for stronger team buy-in and makes sure decisions reflect diverse viewpoints.
Timers
Keep meetings on track with Timers that structure discussions and keep conversations focused. Whether you’re aligning project priorities or making decisions, timers encourage efficiency and momentum.
For example, setting a timer during idea generation sparks quick contributions and keeps discussions energized. In prioritization exercises, timers prevent overanalyzing minor details and keep the team moving forward. Visual cues like a countdown encourage productive meetings and deliver results.
Private mode
Great ideas often come from individual focus. In Private mode , team members can brainstorm independently, free from group influence or distractions. This tool encourages unique contributions and ensures quieter voices have the chance to be heard.
Once everyone has submitted their ideas, meeting leaders can reveal them for discussion and voting. With private mode, you can create a collaborative environment that values all perspectives and promotes innovation.
Planning and prioritization made simple
Effective planning and prioritization keep teams focused on the work that drives the most value. Confluence whiteboards provide a collaborative space where teams can organize ideas and align priorities with ease.
Integrated templates make it simple to get started. After creating a whiteboard, you’ll be prompted to choose a template. Select the Prioritization Matrix template.
The template includes step-by-step instructions to guide your team through sharing goals and identifying tasks. Once your tasks are on sticky notes, drag them into categories based on complexity and value to pinpoint high-impact, low-effort work.
For example, when preparing for a project launch, you might prioritize launching your email campaign (high impact, low effort) over responding to social media comments (low impact, high effort). This visual approach keeps teams aligned and focused on what matters most.
Other templates, like the RICE framework and 2x2 prioritization matrix, offer additional ways to rank tasks and ensure team efforts align with strategic goals. And with seamless Jira integration, Confluence whiteboards make it easy to turn priorities into actionable tasks.
Visualize and streamline workflows with ease
A structured workflow keeps teams organized and projects on track. Without a clear process, roles and responsibilities blur, and execution slows down. Confluence whiteboards offer a visual way to outline each workflow step, identify bottlenecks, and maintain consistency.
Use the Workflow template to build structured processes faster. Drag and customize pre-designed shapes to map out each step, then edit, add, or remove sections as needed.
For example, a project manager overseeing a product launch can outline the entire process — from initial planning and stakeholder approvals to development, testing, and final rollout.
For multi-phase projects, the Timeline Workflow template organizes tasks by stage to track progress. Instead of a linear flowchart, this template uses columns to categorize work by phase, such as Unassigned, In Progress, and Completed. This is useful for visualizing complex workflows that span multiple stages, like product launches or software development cycles. With this setup, teams get a clear view of what’s moving forward, what’s blocked, and where adjustments are needed.
Share workflows with your team to collaborate in real time. Use sticky notes to highlight key tasks, color-code dependencies, and flag blockers. With Jira integration, convert sticky notes and shapes into Jira issues to keep work flowing seamlessly.
Clear roles and responsibilities with mapping
Clear roles keep teams aligned and productive. Confluence whiteboards help project managers define responsibilities and key relationships visually, reducing confusion and ensuring smooth collaboration across teams.
The Network of Teams template is a key resource for identifying stakeholders and outlining team dependencies. As part of the Network of Teams Play from the Atlassian Team Playbook, it provides a structured process for identifying project participants and important areas of collaboration.
For example, an event planning manager organizing a company-wide conference can use this template to map relationships between vendors, speakers, internal teams, and executive sponsors. Identifying the core team and those 'Critical to success' helps ensure everyone understands their role and how they contribute to the event's success.
As the event evolves, teams can refine the map by adding notes, linking related stakeholders, and adjusting priorities. Smart connectors help visualize dependencies, ensuring critical relationships aren't overlooked. Inline comments and @mentions keep discussions in context, making it easy to clarify roles and address collaboration gaps without endless meetings.
Engaging and useful retrospectives made easy
Retrospectives are key to continuous improvement, helping teams reflect on what worked, what didn’t, and how to move forward. Confluence whiteboards make this process simple with the built-in Simple retrospective template.
The template organizes discussions with columns for Good, Bad/Could be better, Ideas, and Actions. Use a timer to keep the meeting focused as team members add sticky notes to each column, capturing feedback in real time. Afterward, group similar notes and use the voting tool to prioritize areas for action.
For example, after a website redesign, your team might highlight strong communication as a success and identify stakeholder alignment as an area to improve. The team could vote on next steps, like scheduling regular check-ins with stakeholders during future projects.
Using Confluence whiteboards for retrospectives facilitates interactive, visual discussions. By making it easy to organize and prioritize feedback, they help teams turn reflection into actionable insights.
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