How They Do ItBETA

COMPANY PLAYBOOK

Atlassian

Atlassian addresses team problems through reusable exercises, explicit roles and measurable health signals rather than abstract values.
Operating system
  1. Team health signal
  2. appropriate Play
  3. facilitated conversation
  4. explicit role/measure
  5. recurring checkpoint.

System principles

  • Turn the problem into a discussable team exercise.
  • Clarify decision roles and success measures at the start.
  • Assess team health regularly with shared language.

Tensions and trade-offs

  • A playbook creates shared language but can become ceremony when detached from context.
  • Measurement aligns teams but poor signals can confuse outputs with outcomes.

PRACTICES

How Atlassian builds its operating system

01
Team health

Team Health Monitor

Teams periodically assess themselves against eight health attributes.

How it works
Teams assess themselves against eight health attributes using a shared red–amber–green view.
Why it is used
Makes unspoken issues visible in a safe, repeatable way.
Trade-off
Scoring produces diagnosis without improvement unless tied to action.
Best fit
Cross-functional teams that struggle to discuss collaboration quality.
Open original source
02
Decision making

DACI decision framework

Driver, Approver, Contributors and Informed roles are explicit.

How it works
Driver, Approver, Contributors and Informed roles are assigned before the decision.
Why it is used
Makes decision ownership and contribution boundaries visible.
Trade-off
Becomes heavy if used for every decision and the Approver can become a committee.
Best fit
High-impact, multi-stakeholder decisions needing one final approver.
Open original source
03
Goals

Goals, Signals, Measures

Goals, success signals and measures are separated.

How it works
Goal, signal of progress and measure of that signal are defined separately.
Why it is used
Separates delivered output from created outcome.
Trade-off
Risks overfocusing on what is measurable and losing qualitative signal.
Best fit
Projects and product initiatives with ambiguous success definitions.
Open original source
04
Learning

Retrospective Play

Completed work is systematically reviewed to generate improvements.

How it works
A facilitated retrospective surfaces what worked, what did not and what should change.
Why it is used
Turns experience into organizational learning and concrete improvement.
Trade-off
Stays superficial without trust and becomes actionless ceremony when overused.
Best fit
Teams with recurring delivery cycles and trackable improvement ownership.
Open original source
05
AI-assisted work

AI Builders Week: three days of learning, one day of demos

Each quarter Atlassian takes product managers and designers out of day-to-day work for four days to build with AI. Day one is inspiration (customer and internal showcases, outside speakers), day two is skills (reusable agents, evaluations, a dev environment), day three is building in one of seven groups with live mentoring, and day four is a demo day that includes what failed. In the latest week 77% of Product Management and 80% of Design attended.

How it works
A quarterly four-day event planned by program managers, craft experts, mentors and IT, with volunteers helping. Participants use Atlassian’s own AI and developer tools first and build end-to-end workflows instead of studying theory; outputs are shared as prototypes, templates and processes others can remix.
Why it is used
To learn AI by building rather than discussing it, and to let product and design roles move into producing code and agents. The stated principle is to experiment openly and share failures as well as successes.
Trade-off
Hundreds of people leave day-to-day work, and the curriculum is technically demanding and relies on volunteer support. The results are self-reported (298 agents, higher usage, 96% positive ratings) and do not show long-term product impact; no process is described for carrying outputs back into regular team work.
Best fit
Large companies whose product and design roles can move toward shipping code, that have AI tools of their own to use and the capacity to mentor.
Open original source

Primary sources

Team PlaybookTeam Playbook
Source details
Company publication: YesAccessed: 2026-09-05Visible update: Not displayedLicence: Not stated by publisherArchive: Public URL; archive feasibility not separately assessed
Engineering HandbookTeam Playbook
Source details
Company publication: YesAccessed: 2026-09-05Visible update: Not displayedLicence: Not stated by publisherArchive: Public URL; archive feasibility not separately assessed
Health MonitorTeam Playbook
Source details
Company publication: YesAccessed: 2026-09-05Visible update: Not displayedLicence: Not stated by publisherArchive: Public URL; archive feasibility not separately assessed