Just popped out of two amazing days inside @atlassian’s #Shipit #SanFrancisco.

A rare chance to work inside one of Silicon Valley’s hypergrowth tech companies, see what open company no BS looks like, and work with their teams to spin up solutions - fast!🔛

ShipIt gives you 24 hours to innovate. Build stuff. Simple, technical, insane. Doesn’t matter what. It’s about ideas made actual, and about teams humming.

It’s kinda like 20% time. On steroids. (This happens once a quarter right across the world and 1000’s of people join in).

What struck me most was the people inside Atlassian, their open ways of work, patterns of collaboration, the fluid free flow of information.

These are seriously talented, authentic, passionate people working open, working fast, no BS, no power plays, with rapid cycles of communication>ideation>synthesis>focussed work>start again.

This is unsurprising given Atlassian’s values-first tilt on the world. And people first approach to hiring.

If you walk through any Atlassian office across the globe, you’ll see their values everywhere - hanging like flags, expressed creatively on walls, part of the living culture and bounce boards of the work that’s done day by day:

Open company, no bullshit
Build with heart and balance
Don’t f*ck the customer
Play as a team
Be the change you seek

But the take out here is that when we talk ad nauseam about innovation, about its process and methodology and science, what we’re really talking about is the way we as REAL people best work together in teams to stand our ideas up. Simple. (As long as you’ve got the right people in the room in the first place).

I’m a big believer in no BS, bringing my authentic self to everything I do, and working with people and in ways that make sense - to me, and the bigger world. 🌏

This #ShipIt experience has restored my faith in what great work looks like.