Lessons from Atlassian: Launching new products, getting buy-in, and staying ahead of the competition | Megan Cook (head of product, Jira)

1. Schedule Intentional Conflict

Implement a weekly 30-minute ‘Fight Club’ meeting with key leaders (e.g., engineering, design) to proactively address conflicts. This prevents issues from escalating, fosters a problem-solving mindset, and strengthens working relationships by tackling disagreements early.

2. Cultivate Peer Feedback Groups

Divide your PM team into small, diverse peer groups (including different leadership levels) that meet every two weeks. Encourage bringing rough drafts for feedback to build trust, model constructive criticism, and normalize showing early-stage work.

3. Prioritize Intentional In-Person Connection

For remote teams, bring people together intentionally (e.g., 3-4 times a year for a week-long ‘festival’ for the whole team, or every six months for PMs). This boosts connection and productivity by approximately 30% for months, especially when combined with fun activities, strategy discussions, and craft workshops.

4. Block Dedicated Deep Work Time

Sync leadership calendars to block long stretches (3-4 hours, twice a week) for uninterrupted deep work. This protects time for creative tasks and allows flexibility to address unexpected urgent issues without constant interruptions.

5. Eliminate Status Update Meetings

Transform meetings into problem-solving sessions by moving status updates to asynchronous communication (e.g., using a tool like Atlas). This frees up valuable meeting time for deeper discussions and protects individual deep work blocks.

6. Use Audio/Video for Async Communication

Utilize quick, casual audio and video recordings (e.g., Loom) for explanations, feedback, and document overviews, especially across different time zones. This helps convey tone, clarifies complex information, and acts as a new, efficient document type.

7. Partner Early for Buy-in

Identify all key stakeholders (cross-functional partners, executives) who might be impacted by or have a valuable perspective on your idea. Involve them early in the development process and continuously seek their feedback to build partnerships and gain advocates.

8. Adopt an Open, Hypothesis-Driven Mindset

When seeking buy-in, present your ideas with a mindset of solving a core problem or opportunity, clearly stating your hypotheses and known facts. Be open to adjusting the solution based on feedback, which builds credibility and trust.

9. Set Clear Meeting Intent

Before any buy-in or decision-making meeting, explicitly state what you need from the group (e.g., a decision, specific feedback, or help testing a hypothesis). This guides attendees’ focus and ensures productive discussions.

10. Fight for CSAT/Usability Investment

Champion investment in improving customer satisfaction and product usability, even if it’s not a ‘shiny new feature.’ Highlight how poor usability negatively impacts new customer acquisition and existing customer expansion, using rich customer feedback and data to make your case.

11. Start Small, Build Momentum

For new initiatives or ‘good fights,’ begin with a small investment and a scrappy approach to test your hypothesis. Show early, impactful successes to gain further investment and build momentum for larger changes.

12. Utilize Gated Innovation Process

Implement a multi-stage, gated process (e.g., Wonder, Explore, Make, Impact, Scale) for new product ideas. This allows for quick iteration and validation at each stage, ensuring continued investment only for promising ventures and protecting small teams from large company processes.

13. Think Bigger (10x) with Ideas

When developing a successful feature or product, consistently ask: ‘How can this be pushed further? Can it apply more broadly to other users or products?’ This encourages identifying larger opportunities and foundational services that could significantly impact the business.

14. Model Desired Leadership Behavior

As a product leader, actively teach, present, explain business concepts, and be vulnerable about your own failures. This sets an example for your team, fostering a culture of learning, openness, and continuous improvement.

15. Use the $10 Game for Priorities

Conduct a ‘10 game’ exercise with your manager to list all priorities and allocate ’time’ (dollars) to each. This helps identify if you are overloaded, ensures alignment on what’s most important, and confirms time is spent on high-impact tasks.

16. Document Decisions Rigorously

Maintain thorough documentation of all decisions, strategies, and project kickoffs. This serves as a valuable resource for new team members and allows for future reflection on past assumptions and hypotheses.

17. Bring Thoughtful, Relevant Data

When presenting to executives, focus on bringing only the most key data points that clearly explain the situation. Know your data deeply so you can dive into details if specific questions arise, building credibility and confidence in your plan.

18. Find Low-Cost Collaboration Models

For cross-team initiatives with many dependencies, seek creative ways for other teams to contribute at minimal cost. For example, assign ‘shepherds’ from other teams to review changes without bearing the full development burden, fostering shared ownership.

19. Show, Don’t Just Tell

When presenting ideas, especially for buy-in, use visual aids, designs, and even customer videos (showing pain points and proposed solutions). This creates emotional connection and excitement, making your case more compelling.

20. Obsess Over Customers

Implement rituals to consistently gather and share customer feedback across the entire company (e.g., weekly emails with random feedback, regular research shareouts, in-product feedback, community forums). This keeps everyone focused on customer needs and drives continuous improvement.

21. Foster an Innovation Culture

Encourage internal hackathons, allow anyone to pitch new product ideas, and proactively carve off small teams to explore emerging technologies. This creates an environment where innovation can come from anywhere and keeps the company ahead.

22. Actively Use Your Own Products (Dogfooding)

Ensure internal teams regularly use the products they build. This practice helps uncover problems, identify areas for improvement, and makes the product experience more real for everyone involved.

23. Balance Core & Future Investments

Strategically allocate resources to both improve core business products and seed future businesses or technologies. This ensures stability while also exploring new growth opportunities, even if some don’t pan out.

24. Be Agile and Kill Failures Quickly

Cultivate organizational agility to quickly shift resources in response to market changes or strategic priorities. Be willing to kill off products or features that are not working, reallocating resources to more promising ventures.

25. Maximize Joy in Life

Identify what truly brings you joy and lean into it, or find annoying aspects of life and transform them into enjoyable experiences. This personal philosophy can be applied to both work and personal life to enhance overall satisfaction.

26. Practice Consistently (Surfing)

For learning complex skills like surfing, consistent practice is key. Get out there repeatedly, as many skills require ‘feeling’ them before ‘knowing’ them, and consider finding an accountability buddy to stay motivated.