Put the System of Work into Practice
Discover what Atlassian's Teamwork Lab has learned about how successful technology-driven organizations make teamwork work.
Enable all teams to drive impact, together
Our Lab-tested, team-approved Practices are the core behaviors that, together, establish a System of Work.
Align work to goals
Plan and track work, together
Unleash collective knowledge
Realize the full power of AI teammates
Align work to goals
Teams with clear goals are 20% more productive.
When goals are visible and reflect business priorities, they become a powerful tool to align teams and drive meaningful progress. A great goal makes teamwork easier for everyone.
Practices
- Set clear and ambitious goals
- Make goals visible
- Use goals to align work to priorities
Set clear and ambitious goals
Set only 3-5 goals per team annually
This forces you to deprioritize less important work and focus on what matters most. Each goal should state what you want to achieve and how you’ll measure if you’ve succeeded, and be ambitious enough to stretch everyone just beyond their comfort zones.
Set shared goals
When teams share a common goal, they’re more likely to collaborate effectively – and build the best solution.
Review goals quarterly (and evolve them if needed)
To be useful, goals need to reflect the most important work happening. If you find during a quarterly review that a goal no longer aligns to your top strategic priorities, update it.
Make goals visible
Document goals in a centralized platform
When everyone can see each other’s goals – and which projects and teams are driving them – silos and redundant work decrease.
Talk about where goals will get you
Paint an exciting vision for the future and outline how the goals you’ve set will help everyone get there. Connecting work to the bigger picture makes teams more motivated and engaged.
Share regular progress updates
Document monthly progress for goals and weekly progress for projects. Updates should be sent to key stakeholders, who can help teams get the support they need to keep moving forward.
Use goals to align work to priorities
Align all projects to goals
Nest projects under relevant goals to show what is needed to achieve that goal.
Rank goals in order of priority
Set up a monthly ritual to check that teams are still focused on the most important work. Re-prioritize goals only if absolutely necessary.
Plan and track work, together
Clear processes make teams 4.6x more likely to be productive.
When teams are clear on how the work will get done and why they’re doing it, they move faster and make better decisions. Team goals translate into meaningful work when processes are put in place that identify everyone’s top priorities.
Practices
- Create an understanding of the plan and purpose
- Get clear on what needs to be done
- Learn and adapt plans for impact
Create an understanding of the plan and purpose
Write a clear brief at the start of every project
A useful brief outlines the problem you’re solving, your primary audience, the impact you want to drive, and everyone’s responsibilities. Keep things as simple as possible and ensure everyone has access to the brief.
Map stakeholders and collaborators
At the start of a project, identify who will be involved and how they can be most impactful. Set up the right communication channels and cadence to keep all parties informed and up-to-date.
Set working agreements
Create a clear understanding of how everyone will work and communicate during the project. Shared rituals and expectations help teams move faster and collaborate more effectively.
Get clear on what needs to be done
Break down work into clear tasks with clear owners
Assign an owner to each task – someone who will drive the work forward until that task is complete. Define what “done” looks like so that everyone knows when the job is finished.
Map task-level dependencies
Mark tasks that are connected. For example, “Send company-wide announcement” can't start until “Get approval from internal communications” is done. This makes it clear what work needs to happen when.
Keep project progress visible
Document progress on tasks and update their status in real time, and share weekly updates that include potential risks and key accomplishments with stakeholders.
Learn and adapt plans for impact
Build reflection points into every project
Plan for key reflection points throughout your project cycle, like pre-mortems, midpoint check-ins, and post-mortems. Reflection rituals help teams mitigate risks, avoid repeat issues, and improve and automate their processes.
Create processes to unblock work fast
Set up channels where teams can quickly get leadership support when needed. Offer guidance on when to escalate issues to leadership.
Set timebound milestones
Outline clear deadlines for project phases and review progress as a team every two weeks. Regular alignment on short-term plans helps teams stay focused on delivery and keep team members learning as they go.
Unleash collective knowledge
Self-serve knowledge helps teams work faster and smarter.
When teams can easily learn from each other, they waste less time searching for context and are better able to solve the right problems, together.
Practices
- Share information async
- Prioritize quality over quantity
- Use AI to surface knowledge
Share information async
Share monthly updates on top priorities
Communicate how current priorities connect to company goals and why they matter. Create an ongoing dialogue with teams to help them understand context, raise concerns, and continuously align their work to the company’s strategic direction.
Replace more meetings with high-quality content
Too many meetings are used to share information or talk about doing work, which eats up time and leaves no accessible record. Encourage teams to replace these types of meetings with high-quality written materials and videos.
Lead every meeting with a page
When meetings do happen, start with a page that lays out context, meeting goals, and key discussion points—then document any decisions made during the meeting. Your page then becomes part of your company’s shared knowledge system.
Prioritize content quality over quantity
Be clear and concise
Focus on what your audience needs to know and why it matters – and don’t overcomplicate things.. Clear, to-the-point messages cut through the noise and drive action.
Involve multiple contributors before sharing pages broadly
Have several contributors review and add to pages before sharing them beyond the team. This promotes alignment while reducing content overload.
Adopt organized transparency—make early-stage work accessible to all, but flag status
Clearly indicate whether content is work-in-progress or officially approved. Use tags and distinct spaces to show if content is early thinking, ready for feedback, or official guidance. This lets everyone learn from and build on each other's work while knowing what they can rely on.
Use AI to surface knowledge
Put everything online so AI can access it
Create a go-to place for information about goals, projects, and teams. When knowledge is searchable and up-to-date, it becomes a powerful tool for alignment, smarter decision-making, and innovation.
Create rituals around updating documentation
Build simple habits and collaborate with AI agents to make sure documentation is current. When teams update knowledge regularly, AI can surface the right information at the right time – and people can trust what they find.
Search first, ask last
Override the instinct to ping colleagues when seeking information. Instead, work with AI to search existing documentation first.
Realize the full power of AI teammates
Successful teams embed AI as part of the team.
It’s not just about automating tasks. Teams who benefit most from AI encourage experimentation and build with agents to unlock new levels of innovation and efficiency.
Practices
- Use AI to accelerate learning
- Become a builder
- Make AI part of the team
Use AI to accelerate learning
Bring context into every workflow
Work with AI agents to quickly transform scattered data into useful insights at every step of your workflow – so you can make smarter, faster decisions.
Leverage AI to expedite research
Empower teams to quickly gain expert insights and knowledge. AI efficiently synthesizes and analyzes large datasets, lowering barriers to research and making learning faster and more accessible. This approach fosters a culture of curiosity, creativity, and innovation.
Use community learning to accelerate impact
Teams learn how to work with AI best from each other – not through formal training. Drive adoption that leads to impact by setting up demo days, Slack channels, and community groups where people can showcase real-world use cases, share insights, and help others uncover new ways to get value from AI.
Become a builder
Build and test AI teammates
Empower teams to create and continuously improve AI agents that support their daily tasks. When AI is customized to a team’s and individual’s specific needs, it becomes an active participant in getting the work done.
Get comfortable with experimentation
Foster a culture that supports experimentation, empowering teams to discover innovative ways to integrate AI into their workflows.
Build trust through transparency
Uncertainty slows down experimentation. Transparent tools, clear policies, and open lines of communication empower teams to learn and experiment with AI safely and confidently.
Make AI a part of the team
Make AI agents go-to collaborators
Treat AI agents as creative and technical partners to brainstorm, iterate, and refine ideas. Use them as assistants to automate routine tasks, freeing up time for strategic work. Leverage agents as expert advisors to expand knowledge, enhance decision-making, and ensure your team can innovate and execute efficiently.
Partner with AI to speed up innovation cycles
Turn ideas into tangible outputs faster. AI helps teams quickly move from brainstorming to structured drafts, presentations, or prototypes – creating instant feedback loops that ensure alignment. By seeing AI-generated outputs in seconds or minutes, teams can refine their thinking early, reducing misunderstandings and wasted effort.
Define clear roles for AI teammates
The best teams align on what needs to get done and how the work will happen – teams that include humans and AI are no different. Decide as a team which tasks AI will handle and how it will collaborate with the rest of the team.
The science of effective teamwork
Atlassian’s Teamwork Lab is a group of scientists dedicated to developing best practices for modern teams. Their findings guide the design of Atlassian’s Practices and apps, and help organizations implement the Atlassian System of Work.
Accelerate success with our Team Playbook
Atlassian’s Team Playbook is a collection of tactical exercises designed to help you implement our System of Work Practices. Plays are proven to help teams work more effectively and solve challenges faster.
Meetings
Weekly Team Updates
Share how things are going—without scheduling another meeting.
Meetings
Page-Led Meetings
Better meetings start with a page that outlines the purpose, expected outcomes, and key discussion points.
Communication
User Manual
Help your teammates understand how best to work with you.
Related resources
2025 State of Teams
AI Collaboration Report
New research: Better meetings start with a page