Notion: A Flexible Operating System for Fast-Moving Teams

If you’re running a studio, a platform team, or a cross-functional initiative in a game or software company, chances are you’ve already bumped into the problem: information lives everywhere, but insight lives nowhere.

Specs are in Google Docs. Dashboards are in Power BI. OKRs are in a spreadsheet. Product updates live in Slack. And team alignment? That’s... somewhere in a Miro board that nobody updated.

That’s where Notion shines—not because it replaces all those tools—but because it lets you pull the signal out of the noise and build a shared source of truth that actually works the way your team thinks.

Tool Link: https://www.notion.so

Where Notion Comes From

Notion was founded by Ivan Zhao and Simon Last with a simple but ambitious goal: to create tools that empower people to shape their own workflows. Launched in 2016, it was one of the first platforms to blur the line between notes, documents, tasks, and databases.

Unlike rigid systems built around one use case (task tracking, wikis, docs), Notion’s power lies in modularity. It’s essentially a no-code workspace builder that lets teams design their own operating system for thinking, collaborating, and executing.

Today, Notion is used by teams at Figma, Match Group, Pixar, Duolingo, and thousands of product orgs and dev studios that need to move fast without falling apart.

What Notion Is For

Notion is best thought of as a connected workspace—a digital environment where you can:

• Write documents and notes
• Create team wikis and onboarding flows
• Track projects and tasks
• Visualize OKRs and initiatives
• Organize meetings and decisions
• Build dashboards from live data

In game and software development, it becomes especially powerful when used as a central nervous system for your org’s knowledge, decisions, and direction.

Rather than flipping between apps to find the sprint plan, the testing checklist, and the postmortem notes, you give your team one place to go—and one place to contribute back.

How It’s Structured

Here’s where Notion stands apart: everything is built from the same block-based structure. Whether you’re writing a game design doc or creating a bug triage board, you’re using the same core components:

• Pages: These are the building blocks of your workspace—think of them as containers for text, checklists, tasks, embeds, or databases.
• Blocks: Every piece of content—text, bullet point, image, table, toggle—is a block. You can move, nest, and remix blocks however you like.
• Databases: This is where Notion really shines. You can build tables, boards, calendars, or timelines—each with custom properties, filters, and linked views.
• Templates: Notion lets you templatize repeatable work: sprint retros, production plans, game testing checklists, or initiative planning frameworks.

It’s like Lego for information. You assemble the pieces to match your team’s flow—without needing to write code or rely on a product manager to configure Jira.

Use Cases for Game and Software Leaders

So how does this actually play out on the ground? Here are some of the most valuable ways I’ve seen Notion used by software and game dev leaders:

1. Living Strategic Plans
   Build a strategy hub with pages for:

• Mission, vision, values
• Company objectives and OKRs
• Strategic pillars or bets
• Quarterly goals and progress summaries
  
  Each page links to real-time status from team-level updates. No more dusty PowerPoints. Everyone sees what the company is focused on—and how their work ties in.

2. Initiative Dashboards
   Create databases that track high-level initiatives with fields like:

• Owner
• Objective
• Progress status
• KPIs linked
• Dependencies
• Strategic connection (what this initiative ladders up to)
  
  You can view this as a board (Kanban), a calendar, or a filtered list per department. It becomes your cross-functional cockpit for visibility and decision-making.

3. Team Wikis and Onboarding
   Document your core processes, rituals, tools, and decision frameworks in one place. Things like:

• How we run sprint planning
• Release checklists
• Design standards
• Postmortem format
• How to file a ticket, request a build, or escalate an issue
  
  When new team members join—or cross-functional partners need clarity—they don’t have to ask five people. It’s already written down. It’s already trusted.

4. Retrospectives and Postmortems
   Use templates to run consistent, structured reviews. Capture what worked, what didn’t, what to change. Assign follow-up actions directly from the doc. Link to related metrics or incidents.
   
   Now your retros aren’t just reflective—they’re actionable. And they’re referenceable for next time.

5. Meeting Notes with Follow-Through
   For every leadership meeting, roadmap review, or sync:

• Capture decisions
• Track open questions
• Note follow-ups
• Link to projects or OKRs
  
  Instead of context getting lost in Slack threads or forgotten Zoom chats, you build organizational memory that’s visible and persistent.

Why It Works for Creative and Technical Teams

Notion hits the sweet spot for hybrid teams because it doesn’t force you into one way of working. Artists and writers can structure it their way. Engineers can embed code snippets and link Jira issues. PMs can run OKR reviews. UX leads can embed Figma boards directly.

It’s the rare tool that speaks multiple functional dialects at once, without adding overhead.

And because it’s collaborative and async-friendly, it’s ideal for distributed or hybrid teams who need shared visibility but don’t want more meetings.

Where to Learn More

• Main site: https://www.notion.so
• Product tour: https://www.notion.so/product 
• Templates gallery: https://www.notion.so/templates 
• Notion for teams: https://www.notion.so/teams 
• API and integrations: https://developers.notion.com 
• Community guides: https://www.notion.so/help/guides 

There’s also an active community on YouTube and Reddit, plus templates for nearly every team configuration or use case.

Tips for Implementation

• Start small: Don’t try to boil the ocean. Start with one team—build your product hub or team wiki—then expand outward.
• Appoint a gardener: Someone needs to keep the space organized. Otherwise, it turns into a digital junk drawer.
• Build templates for repeatable work: Use them for sprint planning, creative reviews, QA checklists, etc. Standardization boosts quality and speed.
• Link strategy to work: Make sure OKRs or strategic pillars are easy to find—and visibly connected to initiatives and team plans.
• Use databases, not just documents: The real power of Notion comes when your pages become living systems, not just static notes.

Final Thought: Build a Culture of Clarity

Notion doesn’t give you clarity. It gives you the ability to build clarity—through visibility, structure, and shared language.

In software and game development—where uncertainty is the norm and context is often fragmented—that’s a competitive edge.

You don’t need another dashboard. You need a system that lets your team see what matters, remember why it matters, and act on it together.

Notion helps you build that system. One page, one process, one team at a time.