For our first ever live show, recorded at Atlassian's Team '23 conference in Vegas, debaters Deb Lao and Marshall Walker Lee took to the stage to debate this thorny topic.  Deb defended virtual socializing, citing the benefits of a workplace BFF and the value of dedicating work time to culture building. Marshall countered, making the case that so many of these Zoom hangs are so poorly executed, they should be canceled so more organic team bonding can flourish.

Debater Rani Shah is a superfan of the practice and has been doing No Meeting Days for years. She’s supported by Dr. Vijay Pereira, who shares his research on how No Meeting Days can boost autonomy and decrease feelings of micromanagement. New debater Deb Lao joins to argue against the practice, supported by meeting expert Mamie Kanfer Stewart who pitches some alternative ways to solve your meeting woes. 

Debater Maren Hotvedt points out the problems with emoji, including cringe-worthy misinterpretations and accessibility challenges. She’s joined by accessibility researcher and assistant professor at Rochester Institute of Technology Dr. Garreth Tigwell, and qualitative user experience researcher Esha Shandilya. Emoji super-fan Shannon Winter advocates in favor of emojis as a culture builder and tool to express identity, with support from Tomoko Yokoi, entrepreneur and researcher on digital innovation at International Institute for Management Development and ETH Zurich. 

Today’s episode digs into the benefits and pitfalls of the remote stand up – from aligning with your team, to leading with empathy, to meetings that really could have been an email. 

You’ll hear from Marshall Walker Lee in defence of daily stand ups, with support from Matan Talmi, the co-founder of Spinach.io, and Kate Sullivan, head of legal at EasyJet. New debater David Shaw says ditch the synced meetup, with support from corporate humor comedian and Supermeme.ai co-founder, Sanjeev Yencee.

Debater Shannon Winter argues in favor of sending messages anytime – she’s backed up by Chase Warrington, head of remote at Doist who shares practical tips to set team-wide expectations. Kelvin Yap argues against after hours messaging, with support from organizational psychologist, Dr. Archana Tedone, who shares the unavoidable pressures of workplace chatter. 

Debater Maren Hotvedt argues in favor of keeping cameras on, supported by Juraj Holub, co-founder of Remote People and former chief meeting designer at Slido. Marshall Walker Lee comes out swinging against the practice, with help from industrial-organizational psychology professor, Dr. Kristen Shockley. 

Join Christine Dela Rosa and a team of debaters for new episodes every other Tuesday.

Debater Kelvin Yap argues in favor of the four-day workweek, supported by Kath Blackham, the CEO of VERSA, a Melbourne-based AI agency that’s been taking Wednesdays off since 2018. In opposition, we have Marshall Walker Lee, supported by Abigail Marks, a professor of the Future of Work at Newcastle University, who shares the dangers of recklessly jumping on the four-day week bandwagon.

Debater Kelvin Yap argues in defense of open channel communication, supported by Matt Abrahams, a strategic communications expert and host of the podcast “Think Fast, Talk Smart”, who shares what we miss when we opt for DMs. Eli Mishkin argues against the distraction from open channels, with the expertise of former technology executive Linda Stone who coined the term “continuous partial attention”. 

Arguing in favor of managers taking on this emotional labor is debater Eli Mishkin, joined by workplace wellness consultant Laura Putnam who shares just how much your manager already affects your wellbeing (…and even your heart health!). Debating against this responsibility is Marshall Walker Lee with support from Dr. Mahreen Khan, a Senior Researcher in the People Insights Team at Atlassian, who explains the risks of putting too much on managers. 

Debater Rani Shah argues in favor of adding colleagues online, alongside her guest Susan McPherson, author of The Lost Art of Connecting. Maren Hotvedt comes out against the practice, supported by Dr. Casey S. Pierce, an assistant professor in the School of Information at the University of Michigan, who shares the risks of merging your online and work selves.

Debater Rani Shah defends direct feedback, with support from Know Your Team’s CEO Claire Lew, who unpacks the cultural consequences of anonymous feedback. And Marshall Walker Lee argues in favor of anonymous feedback, with help from HR pro Osasu Arigbe, who shares a story of direct feedback gone very wrong. 

Debater Maren Hotvedt argues in favor of PJs on Zoom calls, supported by fashion historian Deirdre Clemente, who shares the problematic history of controlling what we wear to work. Dominique Ward comes out against the practice, with help from clothing science researcher Regan Gurung, who explains the value of putting in a little more effort. 

Join host Christine Dela Rosa and debaters Marshall Walker Lee and Kelvin Yap as they debate if you can operationalize something as complex as culture. 

In this episode, you'll hear Dr. Tina Shah talk about the power of strong operating rhythms in preventing burnout, and LaunchDarkly's Jonathan Nolen shares how operating rhythms allow his company to live their values in their day to day. You'll also hear from LinkedIn's People Science Team's Tom Nolan about why people trump process in shaping culture, and Indiana University's Dr. Erik Gonzalez-Mulé about the health risks when employees have low levels of autonomy at work. 

For the transcript and downloadable takeaways, visit https://www.atlassian.com/blog/podcast/work-check.

Join host Christine Dela Rosa and debaters Dominique Ward and Kelvin Yap, as they determine the best ways to forecast for the future. 

In this episode, you'll also hear from Daydream's founder Nels Gilbreth on how annual planning provides alignment and purpose, and strategic advisor Lauren Bourke shares the cultural advantages annual planning provides. Finance director Robin Aitken offers some alternative planning methods that he finds to be more adaptive, allowing managers to be closer to the action. For the transcript and downloadable takeaways, visit https://www.atlassian.com/blog/podcast/work-check.

In this episode, you'll hear from DEI consultant Frank Starling on the opportunities for accountability when leadership drives ERGs; and the Surdna Foundation's Mekaelia Davis shares why ERG members ultimately benefit more when they are in the driver's seat themselves. For the transcript and downloadable takeaways, visit https://www.atlassian.com/blog/podcast/work-check.

Join host, Christine Dela Rosa and debaters Marshall Walker Lee and Shannon Winter and find out if your distributed team really needs to meet IRL. 

In this episode, you'll hear from team builder Anne Thornley-Brown on why setting goals for offsites is crucial, and Unsplash's CEO Mikael Cho shares the story of building his two companies at in-person offsites. ConvertKit's Charli Prangley defends the trust that can only be built at in-person offsites; while Trello's Leah Ryder takes us into the wonderful world of virtual retreats. 

For the transcript and downloadable takeaways, visit https://www.atlassian.com/blog/podcast/work-check.

Host Christine Dela Rosa moderates a fiery debate between Kelvin Yap and Dominique Ward over the limitations and opportunities of agile at scale.

In this episode, you'll also hear from Lutron Electronics' Ben Bard about how scaling agile united his company's hardware and software teams, and from Excella's Nicole Spence-Goon about the empowerment that scaled agile gives teams. Harvard's Dr. Heidi K. Gardner joins to share her research about the failure rate of scaling agile; and agile coach Matthias Orgler illustrates the risks of being fake agile, or "fragile." 

For the transcript and downloadable takeaways, visit https://www.atlassian.com/blog/podcast/work-check.

Join host Christine Dela Rosa and debaters Marshall Walker Lee and Dominique Ward for a meeting of the minds and see what they discover.

In this episode, you'll hear from John Kim, of Emory University's Goizueta Business School about the high cost of unnecessary meetings, and GitLab's Jessica Reeder shares the story of her mind-bending move to flexible, asynchronous work. Harvard Business Review's Christine Liu joins to defend the magic of collaborative, working meetings, and "Rebels at Work" author Carmen Medina shares what gets missed when groups don't meet in real-time. 

For the transcript and takeaways, visit https://www.atlassian.com/blog/podcast/work-check.

In this episode, Atlassian's Philip Braddock, Workday's Alex Jones, and service design director Rachel Lane share their experiences with hackathons – from the innovative and inclusive to the not-so-collaborative. For the transcript and takeaways, visit https://www.atlassian.com/blog/podcast/work-check.

In this episode, co-CEO of Easy Agile Nick Muldoon joins to share his successes with dogfooding. Atlassian's Head of Engineering Paul Slade speaks of the dangers of dogfooding, and Project Inkblot's Akilah Scharff talks about the limits of the practice when your team doesn't represent your audience.

For the transcript and takeaways, visit https://www.atlassian.com/blog/podcast/work-check