Atlassian and Slack have worked together for years to develop rich integrations, such as the Slack apps for Jira Cloud, Halp, Confluence Cloud, Bitbucket Cloud and more. We’ve experienced the benefits firsthand within our own teams and wanted to know if deeper integrations were helping our end users. That’s why Slack teamed up with Atlassian and technology advisory firm 451 Research, a part of S&P Global Market Intelligence, to survey IT leaders and practitioners on the business outcomes of using Slack and Atlassian together.
Specifically, we wanted to find out whether our integrations helped teams collaborate better and release new products faster, especially in remote-work environments. The answer, in a word, is yes. In fact, a majority of respondents indicated that using the two tools together could unlock a variety of benefits:
96%
saved at least two hours per week
78%
saw improved support for remote workers
69%
released software faster in remote settings
The full results of the survey can be found in the report “Digital Transformation Trends Driving Collaboration and Productivity,” but we’ve captured the highlights for you here.
Atlassian and Slack set the standard for modern, remote IT teams
As companies adopt hybrid work models in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, IT leaders are identifying new ways to replace synchronous processes and meetings with more flexible alternatives. These changes present opportunities to reimagine the office as a digital experience and introduce tools that help teams stay connected and engaged wherever they are.
Integrations can play a pivotal role in the new digital headquarters. Our survey respondents reported that Slack and Atlassian integrations have offered significant technical and cultural benefits to users in remote settings. Bringing the tools together has allowed IT teams to better support remote workers (78%), improve visibility (61%) and promote team building (57%).
Other advantages included:
- Keeping employees focused and aligned (53%)
- Increasing accountability (50%)
- Promoting communication/collaboration (49%)
For many organizations, supporting remote teams is a new challenge, but our study also revealed some advantages. For example, replacing in-person conversations with digital ones means details and outcomes can be documented and referenced—boosting transparency and alignment. The same can be said for meetings and updates. By moving these to an asynchronous format, leaders enable their teams to manage their own time.
Reclaiming productive time with Slack and Atlassian
Despite all the focus on efficiency and collaboration, successful software development still hinges on individual productivity. When developers have more time to concentrate on value-added work, they can fix bugs quicker and push new releases out faster. Integrations can help by making it easy for individuals to spend less time on low-value tasks and more time focused on product development and design.
The vast majority (99%) of our survey respondents reported that the Slack and Atlassian product integrations helped them regain time in their day. In fact, nearly two-thirds of those surveyed reported saving more than six hours a week. That’s 312 hours a year—nearly two weeks.
312+ hours per year
Time saved by nearly two-thirds of respondents using Atlassian and Slack
What’s more, 63% said the integration had a very positive impact on the productivity of teams working together. In other words, time savings not only benefits individuals; it can boost team productivity too.
“The effective use of people’s time has been upped tremendously … We hear productivity and time management as the two main benefits of integration.”
Atlassian and Slack smooth out software delivery cycles
Time is of the essence in the software delivery process. Teams are on the hook to rapidly develop and deploy new software regularly. But all too often, tools intended to speed work up have the opposite effect. Communication via email and spreadsheets can drag down response times and contribute to idle waiting time. Poorly managed policy and security requirements also tend to slow down both teams and releases. Even as enterprises adopt DevOps practices, silos persist, and teams often struggle to communicate and collaborate with others outside of their primary domain.
When asked about the most significant constraints in the software delivery process, our survey respondents cited:
- Idle time waiting for responses (63%)
- Policy and security gates (59%)
- Development and IT operations silos (59%)
The good news is that there are ways to address the problem. Over three-quarters of our survey respondents said that Slack and Atlassian have helped them overcome software delivery constraints by improving communication and collaboration. Seventy percent said that using both tools has helped by reducing wait times, and more than half reported that the integration of these tools improved consistency across teams and broke down silos.
“For the people who are leading the projects and managing the projects and having to report out on the projects, it’s made a big difference in their visibility across to-do lists and code reviews, releases and issues. So it’s definitely made it less manual in terms of our ability to track and report.”
As companies try to balance flexibility and security, integrations that support automation and reduce tool sprawl can be critical. Most respondents sought to integrate Slack and Atlassian to collaborate more effectively (63%). Other drivers included reducing time wasted switching between applications (52%) and the need for a better way to curate knowledge of projects (49%).
There’s no question that integration can have benefits, particularly as organizations manage the mix of tools, environments and processes used by their teams. Respondents said that using Slack and Atlassian integrations resulted in:
- Rich notifications and updates when changes happen
- Improved incident management/response
- Improved collaboration and knowledge management
Rather than having to switch between applications, teams were able to respond to alerts in one interface. The survey results also indicated that Slack and Atlassian integrations can enable an agile approach by improving collaboration, driving consistent IT workflows, and speeding up incident and bug response.
“We’re seeing a higher rate of communication. I think that although we miss the face-to-face interaction, there’s been a benefit that things are more documented now than they ever have been before the virus hit.”
Make the most of Atlassian + Slack
The less time companies spend mired in waiting and manual work, the more they can focus on the features, applications, products and initiatives that really matter. Download the full report to learn how you can put Atlassian and Slack to work for your organization.
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