The most popular agile work management platform, Atlassian is built for customizability: these tools change to fit your work’s unique needs. But it's easy to get lost in the weeds with customizations and configurations. Caught between too many options, teams might underutilize their toolstack, leading them to look for additional tools.
To capture the full power of their Atlassian toolstack, organizations should follow industry-tested best practices and optimal configurations. Pre-set frameworks make this process easy and efficient: SYNTHESIS® Blueprints.
With over two decades of experience in Atlassian tool configurations, Contegix has helped organizations of all sizes across different industries achieve operational excellence on the Atlassian suite.
Along the way, we’ve picked up several best practices that benefit most organizations. SYNTHESIS Blueprints layer this expertise on top of vetted third-party apps integrated with pre-configured Atlassian tools.
SYNTHESIS Blueprints also include concierge-level consulting services and training materials to speed implementation. The end result: a robust solution that facilitates collaboration, helping organizations take advantage of everything their Atlassian toolstack has to offer.
Each SYNTHESIS Blueprint can be implemented on its own, but the modular nature of SYNTHESIS allows businesses to opt into what they need, and skip what they don’t. For instance, an organization could start out with the Development Blueprint, but might add the PPM and ITSM Blueprints after implementation to further extend their tools’ functionalities. A financial services company might choose the Development, SAFe, and Governance, Risk, and Compliance Blueprints, but not need the CRM Blueprint due to the nature of their work.
Together, the suite of Blueprints spans a typical organization’s business functions. From task management to knowledge management, integration across the Atlassian tool suite helps the whole organization work smarter long-term.
The Foundational Blueprints are the essential Blueprints governing development processes, which will likely benefit any organization using Atlassian tools.
As the foundation of SYNTHESIS, this Blueprint for software development helps unite disparate development teams on one organized instance of Jira. It supports Jira use in large and growing development teams, with integrated continuous improvement and development (CI/CD) to support change and incident management.
The PPM Blueprint creates a scaffold of proactive change management for project management, designed to support development and project management teams working together. This Blueprint draws on the Atlassian Marketplace application Big Picture to visualize project managers’ plans, integrating top-down project plans with bottom-up sprint plans. It also uses Power Scripts to weave business logic, or algorithmically encoded business rules, into the toolstack.
For organizations that orient their work around product management, this Blueprint weaves together Jira and Jira Product Discovery. Its structure is designed for proactive change management and smart product strategy, helping product and development teams stay on the same page and access one another’s information seamlessly.
As the most popular scaled agile structure, the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) can help enterprise users get the most value from their Atlassian toolstack. SAFe includes a set of standard processes, vocabulary, and best practices to help agile function at scale. With SAFe processes and vocabulary preloaded into Atlassian tools, the SAFe Blueprint is a great option for teams switching to SAFe who want a toolkit optimally configured to support its use. OKRs, or Objectives and Key Results, are a goal-setting tool optionally included in SAFe. The OKR Blueprint supports their use.
For larger organizations, the SAFe Blueprint incorporates Atlassian’s purpose-built SAFe tool, Jira Align. For organizations that are not ready to move to Jira Align, or only wish to implement a portion of SAFe, our SAFe Blueprints offer SAFe implementations that instead leverage Atlassian Marketplace apps, such as Advanced Roadmaps for hierarchy visualization, and Easy Agile Programs for PI Planning.
The Process and Strategy Blueprints add additional support for vital business processes, using tool configuration and plug-ins to align areas such as ITSM and CRM with best practices. These Blueprints are built to stack atop the Foundational Blueprints as needed.
The IT Service Management Blueprint provides an optimal configuration of Jira Service Management, integrated with Jira and Confluence, to streamline incident management at the IT service desk. Due to its integration with Jira and Confluence, this Blueprint can escalate changes and incidents to the internal development teams, and help businesses connect each incident’s resolution process to their overall business strategy. For teams adopting the PMM, Product Management, or SAFe Blueprints, this Blueprint provides an extra layer of organizational support.
For project-based organizations, the CRM Blueprint helps bring customer relationship management with project management together in Jira. With an integrated source of truth, teams can move faster and communicate more effectively and efficiently. Plus, this linked data can be referenced in documentation for future use, helping illustrate the full story of how customer feedback translates to innovative results.
Interlinking with the ITSM Blueprint, the Procurement Blueprint guides equipment purchasing decisions. With asset management handled in the same toolstack as ITSM, all asset management decisions can be informed by ITSM strategy and data.
The HR Blueprint includes best practices for using Jira Work Management for HR. It comes with preconfigured onboarding and offboarding functionalities for all Atlassian tools, including tool access controls and equipment allocation, across the full Atlassian toolkit.
Some organizations want to leverage specific Atlassian functionalities more deeply, such as test and release management or IT automation. These Blueprints provide these functionalities with efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
These Blueprints can be added to the Development Blueprint to provide extra support for these essential aspects of CI/CD. The Test Management Blueprint guides the testing process using the Jira-native test management app Xray, while the Release Management Blueprint supports the planning, deployment, and control of software releases.
For teams needing direct visibility into risks, or who need to ensure proper governance of tools and compliance with regulations, the Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) Blueprint provides an optimal configuration of the Atlassian Toolstack and streamlines reporting.
This Blueprint automates the administrative tasks associated with Jira, alleviating the burden of manual work on the client’s IT team.
Optimizing any new tool can take trial and error. SYNTHESIS Blueprints combine out-of-the-box configurations with expert guidance, offering immediate efficiency and setting teams up for long-term success with Atlassian tools.
To learn more about SYNTHESIS, reach out to a Contegix expert today.