The document outlines a plan for creating a new support training program for a new office in Austin, Texas, using crowdsourced documentation with the help of senior support engineers. Key strategies include defining a core team, setting up regular meetings, and establishing clear goals to improve the organization and quality of training materials. The ultimate aim is to streamline the training process, reduce onboarding time for new hires, and ensure a consistent customer experience across the organization.

1. Crowdsourcing your documentation
Managing a crowdsourced documentation project
s g r i f f i n @ a t l a s s i a n . c o m | t w i t t e r : @ s u b e g e
S u s a n G r i f f i n • T r a i n i n g P r o g r a m M a n a g e r • A t l a s s i a n

2. Benjamin Franklin
By failing to prepare,
you are preparing to fail.

3. About me
• Technical communicator 25+ years
• Traditional and non-traditional roles
• “Never say never”
Interesting fact: This is my third visit to
Germany in 12 months. I think it’s time for me
to learn to speak German!

4. What if…
Your manager came to you and said:
We are opening a new Support office in Austin, Texas, in four months and
we need a brand new training program by the time that office opens.
We can’t give you a writer, but you can use some of the Senior Support
Engineers in our other offices to help you create the program.
Don’t forget to breathe.*
(*someone actually said that to me)
We want this training program to be used by the 60+ new hires we plan on
adding in Austin by the end of this year, and it needs to include a 30-day
induction plan.

8. • Collaborative workforce or intelligence
How many of you have heard of…
• Coordinated crowd activities
• Open innovation
• Social collaboration

9. Jeff Howe, Wired magazine, 2006
“Simply defined, crowdsourcing
represents the act of a company or
institution taking a function once
performed by employees and
outsourcing it to an undefined (and
generally large) network of people in
the form of an open call.”

10. However…

11. • Figure out who your experts are
Keeping this in mind
• Create a core team, with a mission statement
• Set up weekly, even biweekly, meetings
• Communicate through all available channels
• Have a clearly defined road map and goals

12. • Factor in the geographical differences
Figure out who your experts are
• If one expert doesn’t know something, find
another who does
• Get buy-in from everyone’s manager

13. Mission Statement:
The GSD team will review, update, and comment
wrangle the Support procedural information that
forms one part of Support Training Program. Our goal
is to complete this work by the Austin site launch, or
APRIL 8, 2014.
The Get Stuff Done Team

14. • Review the documentation and provide feedback to
other members of this team by the requested date.
Set expectations
• Attend weekly meetings.
• Provide feedback in comments in the restricted site.
• Monitor and respond to comments from the rest of
Support.

16. • Even if the path changes, know where you
are going.
Road map and clear goals
• Know the sacrifices you are willing to make…
• And the ones that cannot be made.

17. At the beginning…

18. • Hundreds of pages of Support training materials spread out
across all of EAC and several other systems.
• No one knows where everything is, content is created and
abandoned. Duplicate content exists everywhere.
• The content organization isn’t apparent, making it hard to find
things.
• Each time we have a new starter, team leads need to create a
training schedule. No one uses anything approaching the same
format.
• We are in a constant state of “reinventing” the training
materials, which is time-consuming and frustrating for
everyone.
The current state of play*
* Data from about 60 hours of informational interviews with individuals across the C4L team.

19. • Everyone understands “The Code of Legendary Service” and
knows what this means when they interact with customers.
• Day-to-day business procedures are the same across all Geos (or
as close as possible, and we start from the same baseline
procedure).
• New starters are able to get up to speed within 90 days and
understand the “how and why” of our products and tools.
• The training materials are professionally written, consistent, and
regularly updated.
• We create a standard that other departments want to follow.
We want a program where:

20. • One space to rule them all: Support Training content lives in one
place on EAC.
• We provide information on the three pillars of Atlassian Support:
• Philosophy/Values (our code of service).
• Procedures: how to do your job.
• Technical training: we are consumers of the great content
coming from Sherry’s team as well as content we create.
• Our materials are well written, consistent, and regularly updated.
What does this look like?

21. How does this help the business?
Over time, we should see the following:
• New hires come up to speed quicker (goal: half the time it
takes currently, or 90 days).
• We can expand Support faster if we reduce the amount of time
a TL can expect to spend one-on-one with new hires.
• We have more expertise spread across the business.
• We have everyone speaking the same language and operating
in the same ways, so our customers get a consistently good
experience.

22. How do we accomplish this?
• Engage all key stakeholders across the team (started Dec
2013)
• Evaluate current materials (in progress)
• Form a small, core group of senior support staff to review
and update procedures (starts this week)
• Outline what can be accomplished, by when (this
presentation)
• Create a timeline (next slide)

23. GETTING
STARTED
• Susan
• Rick
• Michael A.
• EMEA (TBD)
DATA
GATHERING
• Susan
ONBOARDING
• Susan
• Ning
The road ahead, part one
DOC REVIEW
(Support Induction)
• Susan
• Rick
• Michael A.
• EMEA (TBD)
• KL leads
• Tim
• Daniel R.
• Others as needed
DEC 13 – FEB 14 JAN – MAR 14 MAR – MAY 14JAN – MAY 14
6 weeks so
far, another
6 weeks
needed
The GSD*
team
Various
SMEs
Yet to be
scoped
* My senior support engineer advisory committee

24. TECHNICAL
FOUNDATION
• Susan
• Tim
LEGENDARY
SERVICE
• Susan
• Partha
• Jim C.
DOC CREATION
• Susan
• Writer (TBH)
The road ahead, part two
PRODUCT
TRAINING
• Susan
• Sherry & team
• Writer (TBH)
JAN – MAR 14 JAN – MAR 14 MAR – ONGOING 14JAN – MAY 14
Partha to
outline
objectives
to Jim
Courses
coming
starting in
Feb
List of docs
to create
will come
out of GSD
In progress

25. What can be delivered by April 1
TECHNICAL
FOUNDATION
Susan/Tim
Updates to
existing content
only.
NEW SUPPORT
TRAINING SITE*
Susan
Make site live,
move content
over. Stuff will
break during
this time.
PRODUCT TRAINING
Sherry’s team
JIRA Essentials
JIRA Agile in Practice
JIRA/Confluence Integration
JIRA Admin
Getting Started with
Confluence
Getting Started with Git and
Stash
MAR – APR 14 MAR – APR 14 FEB – APR 14
Assuming 100% of Susan’s time, some portion of the GSD team’s time,
as well as some of Ning’s time.

26. How I kept track

28. • Use what you know and are comfortable with,
but…
• If others can contribute as well, that will make
your job easier.
• Don’t be afraid to try something new! You
might discover a tool that works better for
you.
Project tracking tools

29. My project tracker

30. Project workflow

31. Issue example

32. • Have a meeting schedule and stick to it.
Find communication that works
• Hold people accountable for deliverables.
• Sometimes you won’t be popular.

33. Communication/Collaboration tools

34. • Blogs
Spread the word
• Forums
• Any other internal means of communicating to a
wide audience

38. Ongoing Maintenance

39. • New projects need new owners
Post-Launch Activities
• The challenge of the remote team
• Assessing progress and making changes

41. Juggling time zones isn’t easy

42. • Survey feedback
How do you measure success?
• Changes in NPS (net promoter score) and/or KPI
(key performance indicator)
• Test scores

43. Thank you!
S u s a n G r i f f i n • T r a i n i n g P r o g r a m M a n a g e r • A t l a s s i a n
s g r i f f i n @ a t l a s s i a n . c o m | t w i t t e r : @ s u b e g e

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