This year, Atlassian has signalled a real emphasis on the importance of goals. Or, more accurately, the value of aligning work to specific goals – goals which can be tracked, measured and viewed across teams.
For enterprises, we know it can be particularly challenging to maintain visibility of strategic priorities. With multiple teams, work-streams, projects and moving parts, how do leaders keep track of their goals? Atlassian Focus could be the solution.
Launched at Atlassian Team ‘24 Europe, Focus demonstrates both Atlassian’s commitment to positioning goals at the heart of meaningful work, and its continued investment in enterprise-level solutions.
'Atlassian is doubling down on enterprise strategy & planning with Focus, helping leaders get a clear picture of how goals are progressing…' - Atlassian, Announcing Focus, 2024
So, let’s explore Focus in a little more depth, understand where it fits within the Atlassian System of Work, and discover how it can deliver value across your enterprise organisation.
What is Atlassian Focus?
Focus is a new product in the Atlassian System of Work, and is a centralised platform for enterprise leaders to view, track and analyse their organisation’s goals. Perhaps most importantly, you can ensure that all elements of your work, from teams and resources to specific objectives and funds, are in line with overarching strategic priorities.
Focus has been designed to complement Jira Align, strengthening enterprise leaders’ tooling and processes. When it enters General Availability (GA) next year (possibly as early as Q1 2025), it will be included within Jira Align – at no extra cost.
The question is: How will you use it?
Focus key features
There are four key elements of Focus, which we’ll explore a little more here. It’s worth saying that further functionality may evolve between now and the product entering GA. We’ll be keeping a keen eye on this – especially as we know Atlassian is dedicated to enhancing its enterprise offering.
For now, however, let’s focus on the capabilities Atlassian unveiled at Team ’24 Europe:
1. Focus areas
At the heart of Focus lie focus areas, each of which enable you to track specific goals and view their progress (or, as the case will sometimes be, delays!). Within each focus area, you can view updates from team members, which may provide insights into blockers or inefficiencies, or other valuable context, all in one place.
💡 Spotlight on connection and centralisation
If you’ve been keeping up with our recent Atlassian updates, such as on the System of Work, the changing face of Jira, or new AI-powered product Rovo, you may have noticed a clear theme emerging: Connection.
Whether it’s Rovo pulling data from multiple third-party tools and delivering seamless insights, tailored to your organisation’s unique context, or Jira’s continued evolution into a tool for all teams, Atlassian’s product portfolio is focused on bringing your teams, work and goals together into one cohesive flow.
Focus has, as we mentioned earlier, been designed to complement Jira Align, but you’ll also be able to bring work from Jira into the platform too, for a bird’s eye view across the System of Work.
Ultimately, Focus brings collaboration and centralisation to enterprise organisations – overcoming information silos and delivering a level of visibility often unavailable to those in leadership positions.
2. Focus area maps
Within your focus areas, you can visualise work with focus area maps. These are updated in real-time, and you can take a closer look at the detail by viewing sub-focus areas or goals.
3. Instant multi-channel notifications
Focus integrates with Slack and Microsoft Teams to provide you with AI-powered summaries when something changes. From goals changing status to alerts that you may need to keep watch on a particular area, you’ll always have the information you need to understand what’s happening on the ground.
4. Cross-product enterprise OKRs
With Focus, you can manage your OKRs at either department or organisation-level. In Atlassian’s ongoing dedication to delivering a single source of truth, updates are made in real-time across all products.
Let’s take a moment to peer little closer at the Focus-Jira Align relationship here. We turned to our team for their insights into Focus, and how it can add value to enterprises.
'What Focus does is to align goals at each level of the organisation to the hierarchy you’ve defined in Align, so there is alignment in how your organisation is working together towards the overall objective. One of the key differences from other Jira products is the ability to define custom hierarchical levels that do not need to be uniform across the organisation. For example, you can have 3 levels of organisation in one division and 5 in another.' - Head of Managed Services at AC
Unlocking long term success with Atlassian Focus
The key value of Atlassian Focus is that it provides a central viewpoint for enterprise leaders, like you, to track the progress of strategic objectives and goals across their organisation.
With real-time updates and integrations across the Atlassian product portfolio, it also ensures that you can be confident that the data you’re viewing is accurate and up to date – leading to more meaningful decision-making and high-level strategising.
Ultimately, Atlassian Focus narrows the gap between work on the ground and its impact on overarching organisational objectives and strategic goals.
Atlassian Focus consultancy services
As an Atlassian Platinum Solution Partner, we are ideally placed to guide you to long-term success throughout the Atlassian System of Work – and that includes your use of Atlassian Focus and Jira Align.
From process optimisation and best practice to training, we can support you with all elements of your enterprise strategy and planning journeys.
Contact us today and book your free consultation with Automation Consultants
We offer a free 30-minute consultation, to give you the opportunity to share your challenges and objectives. We can then provide initial recommendations and guidance for how you can move forward. It’s utterly informal and may help to propel you to greater collaboration, connection and value. Simply fill in the form below, and we’ll be in touch!
