If you work in the banking sector, how should you manage innovation with stability? For one of our clients in Switzerland, remaining stagnant with their project management tools was not an option. When your tools don’t meet the needs of your team, they’ll find a solution to get the job done on their terms. It’s a common story we hear in the Atlassian ecosystem – how one instance catches fire until it replaces all the previous legacy tools. The results are better processes and communication between teams.
A better Electronic Document Management solution with Confluence
Their Atlassian journey started a few years ago, when one of the bank’s IT teams independently installed a Confluence instance. The team, limited by their Electronic Document Management (EDM) solution, needed a tool to manage their unstructured content. At the time wikis were just emerging, and Confluence had already distinguished itself with an approach that combined easy collaboration with security.
Confluence quickly became the bank’s one source of reliable and legitimate information. The previous tool for Enterprise Content Management had processes that were cumbersome but Confluence gave the teams more freedom. This quickly rallied support from all IT users.
Today the Confluence instance is shared by all IT and business teams, which is equivalent to 3,400 users.
The next step: Adding Jira Software
Jira came on the scene shortly after Confluence for assigning tickets for project management, quickly proving to be a better solution than their in-house application.
With the help of Valiantys, a Jira deployment shortly followed Confluence to support the team with bug tracking management. The previous solution was based on IBM Lotus Notes, a platform widely used within the company but had limited functionally and was no longer sufficient for the growing needs of the teams.
“There was no initial dialog for implementing Atlassian tools, both Jira and Confluence were adopted naturally by the teams,” says a representative from the bank.
Jira was quickly extended to the Software teams due to its agile features. This was done during a time when the team was developing their competencies in agility, so Jira certainly helped with this transition. During this time, Green Hopper for Jira (the app has since been integrated into Jira Software) was very helpful for development teams, as the sprint management allowed teams to improve their development and project planning.
Jira Service Desk deployed for a stronger ITSM strategy
The next team in line to be converted to Atlassian tools was the Service Management department. With the help of Valiantys in 2015, the bank replaced Remedy from BMC with Jira Service Desk, as the Atlassian tool proved to be more modern.
This time, the implementation of Jira Service Desk was a corporate decision – one they were confident in, given their track record with Atlassian and Valiantys. A Valiantys consultant accompanied the team from the beginning of the project to production. Valiantys studied the migration’s feasibility along with how Jira Service Desk could work to fit the company’s needs. After conducting a Proof of Concept, Remedy was replaced and the Valiantys consultant accompanied the bank in migrating to Jira Service Desk, making sure the team was in the loop during every step of the process. Even today, the same consultant is still the ITSM expert for the company.
Currently, Jira Service Desk is the platform where all change requests, bugs, incidents and IT service requests are sent. Calls to the help desk automatically create a ticket in Jira.
Jira Service Desk is currently our largest Atlassian project, with more than 515,000 tickets, an average of 10,000 incident tickets created per month, 800,000 comments and 660 projects managed in a year and a half of production.
The Atlassian Suite for all teams
Building on these successes, business teams requested that the IT team expand Jira Software into their departments, and soon the adoption was viral. The company now uses the tool to organize and manage tasks both within and between teams. The solution eliminated paper processes, excess emails and many Excel files while offering better traceability with easier and more efficient tracking.
Users quickly adopted Atlassian tools, as the technology complied to the business needs – not the other way around.
At the request of business teams, the IT team provided customizable forms and processes. Since 2016, the business teams have had their own Jira instance.
The craze for Jira is palpable through the increasing demands for customization by every department. Users are reassured by the stability and robustness of Atlassian products, which reinforces their confidence in the tools.
With almost one hundred licenses and multiple Jira instances, license management became complex and time-consuming. The bank decided to entrust Valiantys with the management of their licenses in 2014, resulting in co-terming and optimization of the overall budget.
Whether for business or IT teams, the Atlassian suite allows teams to improve their productivity and efficiency. By improving collaboration – equally within and between teams – employees can spend more time focusing on their core tasks. Traceability over tickets is now possible, making monitoring projects even easier.
Previously the company used a tool that was developed in-house, so they immediately benefited from how their Atlassian tools were dynamic and flexible. Whatever their service needs, they rely on Jira Software, Jira Service Desk and Confluence to get the job done.
As a win for the decision makers, they are pleased with the low cost of implementing business processes with Jira, especially in comparison to the costs of implementing competing business process management solutions.
As a result, the IT department increased their ability to meet the needs of each individual team. They collaborate regularly with a Valiantys consultant – who is integrated into their internal team – allowing the company to fully exploit the power of Atlassian tools while adapting them to the specificities required throughout the company.
The full customer story is available on our website, which can be found here.
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