5 must-see sessions at Atlassian Summit 2017 in San Jose

My colleagues often ask me for recommendations of what they should look out for when they go to Summit, especially those who haven't been to Summit before.

There's a wide range of presentations on the agenda for Atlassian Summit 2017 in San Jose and the choice can be overwhelming at first. Whether you're looking for tips to add to your Jira admin skills, new ways to use your Confluence, or means to think differently about how teams work, there are plenty of talks which would apply during the two days.

The following five sessions look unmissable. Unfortunately, some of them clash - but that's what happens at Summit. There's so much going on that you have to make some hard choices. Let us know - in the comments below - which sessions you're planning on checking out.

Baseball and Video Delivery: How BAMTech Uses Jira Software to Scale

Wednesday 13th | 2:20pm - 3:30pm | Grand Ballroom 220C | More information

Judette Platz and Kristy Saunders from BAMTech discuss how they successfully used Jira, Confluence and other apps to improve collaboration as their team grew.

This one jumped out at me because it's a story of success in growth. As an organisation grows, the challenges change - something I have seen firsthand through our partnership with BAMTech.

When you are a handful of people working in a shared space, you can shout someone's name or wander across the room. Your communication and collaboration are quick and easy to initiate. When there are several thousand team members scattered across our fragile planet, you can't yell without at least thinking about time zones and usually a host of other things, too.

I've worked in some of the world's biggest industries and for tiny start-ups. The challenges of ramping up your users and customer usage vary so much. I'm always interested in hearing how anyone has handled those challenges.

Merging and Migrating: Data Portability from the Trenches

Thursday 14th | 10:30am - 11:10am | Grand Ballroom 220C | More information

Dan Hardiker and Britney Wispell from Adaptavist will share the challenges they face and solutions they've found to common data portability issues.

Look, I know that I work at Adaptavist, but that doesn't change the fact that this presentation is directly applicable to my daily work. My squad's workload is currently very heavily merge and migration related.

We've encountered a lot of data related issues and have developed a mindset to be constantly looking for any potential new problems. More importantly, we look for solutions. Whether it's guidelines on the approach to the task or specific failures, we learn from it all and those lessons are what this talk is focused on.

Early Signal Testing: Designing Atlassian's New Look

Wednesday 13th | 4:50pm - 5:30pm | Room 211A | More information

Atlassian designers Becky White and Ashleigh Sterzenbach take the audience through a research tool used recently when redesigning the Atlassian cloud suite. Early Signal Testing can help designers gain measurable feedback within a week to help expedite the process.

I am old. I have typed machine code in octal into a computer and had it work. With that experience, I can say without equivocation that I really do appreciate more friendly user interfaces.

Nowadays, I click on things a lot to make it all work but I still think in terms of that 40x25 orange-on-black text and I have no idea how to go about designing a UI that would work for anyone else. I see a lot of people who don't quite "get" user interfaces and I know that things I might design for myself probably wouldn't work for other people. So I'm curious about the conversations and thought processes that go on in those more creative minds and how they think about what could work for others.

I'm also wondering if the new UI will help alleviate some confusion I've seen from customers that get lost in back-end Jira screens? We'll find out.

Mental Health in the Workplace - The Atlassian Way

Thursday 14th | 10:30am - 11:10am | Room 210A | More information

Tyler Smith from Atlassian shares his experience and talks all things mental health in the workplace. Specifically, how Atlassian approaches this sensitive subject and how to support those affected.

Mental health is something that I am always interested in. This is partly because I worked in the field before taking up computers but mostly because of the things my family and friends have been through. As people are becoming more aware that mental health issues affect more than just a handful of us, there's an increasing awareness within organisations, too. So I'd love to hear how that happens in other organisations.

Exploring Atlassian's People Graph

Thursday 14th | 3:15pm - 3:30pm | Grand Ballroom 220B | More information

Geoff Simms presents the people graph - a graphical representation of Atlassian's internal message exchanges. In this talk you will see how raw data can be made beautiful as well as help you gain a greater understanding of how teams work together.

I imagine a picture of how people interact could tell us all sorts of things about an organisation. I know why security services would love it, but I'm sure there are many other things it could say about an organisation. My first instinct would be to look for gaps more than connections - who isn't talking to whom. But I bet this session will have a lot to say about both the gaps and the connections in addition to providing a fascinating look into the patterns of people.

Coming to Atlassian Summit 2017 in San Jose? Make sure you swing by the Adaptavist booth (#529) and the SmartDraw booth (#827). While you're there, enter to win one of two Oculus Rift VR headsets with touch controllers and learn about what's new with Adaptavist and Marketplace favourites like ScriptRunner, Test Management, SmartDraw, and more!