## [Whiteboarding Architecture Sessions in Jira & Confluence](/blog/whiteboarding-architecture-sessions-jira-confluence.md) July 23, 2026 · 7 min read [NGPilot](https://ngpilot.com) Who should read this * **Engineering teams** that sketch architecture during planning and design reviews * **Tech leads** who want design decisions captured on the ticket, not lost in a photo * **Anyone** comparing freehand whiteboarding vs. text-based (Mermaid) diagramming What you'll learn 1. How to run an architecture whiteboarding session that stays attached to the Jira epic 2. When freehand sketching beats structured diagrams (and vice versa) 3. Using 229 cloud/UML/networking shape libraries inside Jira 4. How Excalidraw and Mermaid complement each other Every architecture review ends the same way: the team sketches a system on a whiteboard, someone takes a blurry phone photo, and the diagram is never seen again. The next sprint a new engineer joins, asks how the system fits together, and the whiteboard gets redrawn from memory — different every time. The fix is to capture the architecture sketch on the ticket it describes, editable by anyone on the team, versioned with the issue. That's what [**Excalidraw Diagrams plus Whiteboards for Jira**](https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/2139233994/excalidraw-diagrams-plus-whiteboards-for-jira) does: it adds a full drawing canvas to every Jira issue, with 229 bundled shape libraries and freehand drawing. The same experience is available in Confluence via [Excalidraw plus Whiteboards for Confluence](https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/123651/excalidraw-plus-whiteboards-for-confluence). This guide walks through running an architecture session that produces a saved, shareable diagram. **Tags:** * [jira](/blog/tags/jira.md) * [confluence](/blog/tags/confluence.md) * [excalidraw](/blog/tags/excalidraw.md) * [whiteboard](/blog/tags/whiteboard.md) * [architecture](/blog/tags/architecture.md) * [diagrams](/blog/tags/diagrams.md) * [how-to](/blog/tags/how-to.md) [**Read more**](/blog/whiteboarding-architecture-sessions-jira-confluence.md)