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Invision + Atlassian

Distributed, but not disconnected

How InVision centralized their tools and scaled their remote team with Atlassian and Slack


A valuation of almost $2 billion. Over 5 million users. Nearly 800 employees. Zero offices. 

::record scratch:: That’s right. No headquarters, no office space – anywhere

How can a software startup in a burgeoning industry grow into a multi-billion-dollar business leader in just a few years – all with a fully remote team distributed across over 40 states and 20 countries around the world? InVision is showing us the way. 

Founder and CEO Clark Valberg believes the screen has become the most important place in the world. So it makes sense that they not only developed a platform of collaborative design and prototyping tools for creating screens and digital experiences, but also a company that operates entirely through the screen. 

There are endless proven perks of remote work: higher productivity, cost savings, better work-life balance, and more. But it also comes with big challenges, including creating a strong company culture, maintaining clear communication, and building rapport among coworkers who aren’t sitting next to each other or seeing each other regularly.  

With the help of Atlassian and Slack, InVision has tackled all of these challenges and more. They’ve developed a connected, communicative team and an award-winning culture, as well as repeatable processes and systems for scaling that culture as they bring design-driven innovation to every company in the world.

Simplification starts with centralization

When Wendy Stockholm joined the company as Director of their BizTech IT department, each team was using a number of tools to do their work. This large and disconnected technology stack created several challenges.

With Atlassian, it’s easy to get started and spin up a solution. I also loved the idea of having a self-serve app marketplace.

Wendy Stockholm

Director of BizTech

Tasks were slipping through the cracks. Employees were losing time switching between tools, and it was hard to pass work between teams because each one used a different platform. Leaders also found it nearly impossible to pull comprehensive reports or get a complete picture of the people and projects they were managing. To continue the company’s rapid growth, they needed to simplify, stat.

InVision wanted one cloud-based platform that could meet their diverse needs off the shelf and integrate well with other department-specific tools, such as HR’s resource management system. Wendy was already familiar with Atlassian, and once she started researching how Atlassian tools like Jira Software, Confluence and Trello could integrate easily with the rest of their day to day tools, it quickly became her top pick. She remembers, “With Atlassian, it’s easy to get started and spin up a solution. I also loved the idea of having a self-serve app marketplace.”

With the Slack and Atlassian integrations, “Every comment someone makes on the Confluence page or in InVision gets pushed to Slack, so we get real-time updates.”

Dennis Field

People Team

Wendy was optimistic that migration and change management would be easier since some of InVision’s departments, such as Engineering, Product & Design (EPD), were already using Trello and Jira Software. She also appreciated that InVision could integrate Atlassian with their other day-to-day tools, including their own product and Slack.

While Wendy and the BizTech team began centralizing their own system and IT’s workflows to Jira Software and Confluence, other departments were also adopting Atlassian. Today, teams across InVision use Atlassian products to help improve productivity, efficiency, visibility, and collaboration.

A customized solution for every department

Since implementing Atlassian cloud products, every team at InVision has seen noticeable improvements. HR (which InVision calls the People Team) and IT have experienced the biggest transformations so far.  

Before, employees made IT requests by posting a message in InVision’s IT Slack channel. However, there was no way for IT to assign tasks, easily follow up with the requestor, track the request, or report on results. 

Now, Atlassian cloud products have emerged as the perfect solution, without forcing employees to change their workflow. Because Slack integrates seamlessly with Atlassian products, individuals can still post a message to Slack or submit requests directly through Jira Service Management. Either way, a ticket is automatically created in Jira Software with the Jira for Slack integration, where IT can assign and work on requests, talk through an issue with other team members through comments, track the task through to completion, and report results to leadership. Employees can watch the ticket through Slack for updates on the status, assignee, priority, and more. This saves the IT team time as they no longer have to field status questions and lets employees focus on their core responsibilities without having to worry about their IT requests being forgotten.

Create Jira issues directly from slack
Jira notification with contextual update

The People Team has also used Atlassian to simplify their work and improve communication with employees. Their department relies on Trello to manage onboarding, and on Confluence to document and share information with employees. Both solutions help create a positive experience for new hires – especially crucial given InVision’s remote work model – and keep all employees up to date on the latest news and policies. 

InVisioners are encouraged to use and integrate Atlassian in creative ways as well. For example, Marie Kretlow and Dennis Field from the People Team integrated InVision with Slack and Confluence to visualize their work and stay on top of updates. “One project Marie and I are working on is our employee handbook,” Dennis explains. “We often use an InVision feature called Freehand to map out ideas, and our InVision prototype of the handbook is embedded into a Confluence page. Anything we change automatically gets pushed to Confluence for everyone to see. Then every comment someone makes on the Confluence page or in InVision gets pushed to Slack, so we get real-time updates.” Team members can also like a Confluence page and reply to comments directly from the Slack channel they are shared in.

Invision for Confluence
Reply to comments on Confluence pages without leaving Slack channel
Preview Confluence blogs and pages from Slack

As Marie and Dennis experienced firsthand, the more InVisioners integrate Atlassian and Slack into their daily work and other tools they use (including their own product), the more efficiencies and improvements they gain.

Hundreds of employees, hundreds of locations, one mission

Now that InVision has migrated all of their teams to Atlassian and integrated the solution with their other day-to-day tools, all of their systems and people can work together as one.

Each department has felt the impact of this new solution on their work. For example, Director of IT Eric Amlie reports that IT ticket volumes have decreased by 50% since transferring the service request process to Jira Service Management, integrating it with Slack, and utilizing Jira Software’s internal automation controls. Marie says Atlassian and Slack also enable the People Team to stay seamlessly connected across critical workflows with many moving parts and provide a better employee experience from beginning to end.

Wendy believes Atlassian cloud products will play a key role in scaling and connecting InVision’s distributed team. “Our remote nature means you normally have to hunt down the person who knows the information you’re looking for or the tool that has the right data. But by centralizing with Atlassian, we now have one virtual space – somewhat of a physical representation of each department – where we can store knowledge and data, rather than relying on a person,” Wendy explains. “This has helped keep us aligned, focused, and efficient. Reducing friction and disruption has been huge for improving visibility, reporting, and streamlining our practices.”

IT ticket volumes have decreased by 50% since transferring the service request process to Jira Service Management and utilizing Jira Software’s internal automation controls.

Marie adds that Atlassian helps InVisioners not only do their day-to-day work, but also carry out their deeper mission of helping companies around the world innovate through digital design. “Ultimately, our partnership with Atlassian positively impacts InVision’s customers,” she says. “The more closely integrated we can become as a team, the better we can serve our customers as they create better digital products and experiences.”

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