First came the cancellation of upcoming events, including Atlassian Summit 2020 — the most important annual event in the Atlassian ecosystem. Then, ALM Works closed its Boston office as of Monday, March 16.

Now our company, like all members of the Atlassian ecosystem, is adjusting to the new normal while still monitoring a constantly evolving situation

“It’s hard to say what’s next because we’re still in the middle of it,” says Igor Sereda, CEO of ALM Works, Inc. It’s a worrying time: This situation is unprecedented and impacts on the broader economy are unpredictable. Still, the company has a continuity plan in place for times of crisis and is confident it can weather the economic storm. In times of financial upheaval, it’s good to remember that Atlassian’s fundamentals are sound. Atlassian proved very resilient during the financial crisis of 2008 because it and its products are essential to the success of IT teams in the industry, Sereda noted.

The cancellation of nearly all in-person events for the foreseeable future has also upended the way we do business, he said. It’s not only a matter of missing the jolt of energy and wealth of new information that comes from gathering together — events like these provide a structure (no pun intended) for our year. These are the places where we share important news, such as information about our new releases, and therefore they act as deadlines that motivate us and provide milestones by which to mark the year. That, combined with the sudden scattering of ALM Works’ employees, has disrupted routines.

Opportunities in dark times

Even as members of our community come to grips with troubling events, there are always opportunities to learn lessons and make positive long-term changes during upheaval like this. Canceling in-person events means extra time and resources to devote to other projects, for example, and that may prove fruitful in unexpected ways. As for remote work, Sereda has considered testing out remote teams for a while; now, the company is getting its chance to work through new ways of operating.

“This is an opportunity to become better and more flexible,” he said.

Using agile to adapt to the unexpected

Slava Rozner, COO of ALM Works, said the company moved to close the office as news of the pandemic spread. In times like these, the agile philosophy works well. “As circumstances change, we need to react appropriately. We have to be coherent and appropriate (in our decisions), but nothing is set in stone.”

Dealing with the pandemic is far from easy, especially as individual workers adapt, often amid challenging family circumstances. Rozner emphasized that his goals are always to continue the company’s success as well as make sure its employees are happy and connected. “Ideally, I want everybody to feel engaged and happy, and to feel they belong.” With that in mind, ALM Works is trying to be as flexible as possible as everyone adapts.

In many ways, however, these conditions run counter to the Agile mindset. Dean Leffingwell, cofounder and chief methodologist at Scaled Agile, Inc., noted recently that Agile works best when there are lots of face-to-face interactions. At this moment, it can be useful to look to Agile companies that have experience with distributed teams to find ways to maintain the workflow even under less-than-ideal circumstances.

Rob Castaneda, CEO of ServiceRocket, noted that the switch to remote work was not a massive change for his company — they were already working remotely in various teams, using Atlassian Cloud and Workplace by Facebook. This may actually be an opportunity for VR to become mainstreamed in remote teams. But it’s hard for traditional businesses to pivot to all-remote teams, and there are other worries, too.

“Security is a big concern for me, I can see lots of holes being opened inadvertently during this period,” Castaneda said.

Banding together

Beyond what the pandemic means for companies like ours, this is clearly a frightening time for many vulnerable members of our society who are going to be impacted by economic retraction — and in many cases, already have been.

ALM Works is making a donation to a local organization working to help those affected by the pandemic as part of its Pledge 1% commitment. As reported in news outlets like the Boston Globe, plenty of organizations need additional help to support vulnerable communities during this unprecedented period in time. We're confident we are not the only ones who share this view in the Atlassian ecosystem.

Our Business Continuity Plan

You can learn more about the ALM Works Buiness Continuity Plan by visiting the corresponding page on our customer wiki.