From local expertise to a global operating model.

Start with the problem, not the solution.

Atlassian's support organization had regional teams using different queue-management practices and locally developed approaches. The strategic objective was to increase the organization's ability to support a growing customer base without simply scaling headcount.

We used operational measures including time to first touch, resolution time, tickets worked, and CSAT to identify teams that were consistently performing well. Then I observed how regional and team leads actually managed their queues and worked with them to uncover the practices and decisions that weren't visible in formal documentation.

A dashboard could tell us which teams were performing well. It couldn't necessarily tell us why.

Turn what works into something that can scale.

The goal wasn't to take one region's process and force everyone else to use it. We worked across Support leadership, Engineering, Operations, and users to separate the principles producing good outcomes from the local implementations that had grown around them.

Those findings became product requirements, a simpler shared workflow, governance, and an iterative roadmap.

Standardize what creates leverage. Preserve flexibility where it doesn't hurt the system.

Treat adoption as part of the product.

Shipping Single Queue wasn't the definition of success. People already had workflows that worked for them, and regional organizations had developed their own practices.

We brought product champions into development and rollout so they could test the approach, challenge assumptions, identify regional differences, validate workflows, and surface problems before broader rollout. As adoption expanded, they became a feedback network between the people using the system and the people evolving it.

Change management wasn't something that happened after product development. It became part of the product-development loop.

Build for learning after launch.

The roadmap extended beyond initial release: establish the shared workflow, drive adoption and refinement, then use what we learned to improve organizational efficiency and capacity.

Executive reporting focused on delivery, adoption, operational performance, risks, and the decisions leadership needed to make next.

A shared system — and a repeatable way to improve it.

Single Queue replaced a collection of regional approaches with a shared operating model. The work also created a repeatable way to learn from high-performing teams, turn tacit knowledge into scalable practices, and continue improving the product after launch.