Making efficient use of Atlassian Jira in project management

How the IU Group was able to significantly accelerate project processes and reduce errors through smart automation.

The IU Group (IUG) is the holding company of the IU International University (IU). With over 140,000 students, 15,000 practical partners, 1,000 lecturers, and around 550 professors, the IU is the largest private university in Germany and one of the largest in Europe. Since its foundation in Erfurt in 2000, it has expanded to more than 35 cities and has recently achieved considerable development with 70% growth. The state-recognized university offers students from over 190 countries flexible study models, including a practice-integrated dual study program, flexible distance learning, as well as the individual myStudium program, which combines online self-study and campus life.

The project at a glance

70% time savings in project plan creation by automating Jira processes
Reduction of manual time required for project setup from 10 hours to 3

Significant reduction in susceptibility to errors and elimination of administrative preparation
Flexible applicability for further initiatives

Initial situation

IUG uses various Jira functionalities, including the advanced roadmap feature and dashboards, to manage implementation projects. The basis is a project plan, which is created as a template and used for every other initiative. The implementation of “Jira Refinement & Automation” was planned for April 2024. The complexity of the project was high and a variety of stakeholders were involved. It was therefore necessary to find ways to, in particular:

Simplify the management of the Jira project with over 500 issues overall, thus increasing user-friendliness
Set up a workflow that allows IU to copy the template with the least possible time exposure and error rate, and
Provide real-time visibility into project status.

Atlassian Jira im Projektmanagement effizient nutzen - Linkwolke

Solution

IUG worked closely with codecentric to achieve significant improvements in project management.

Initially, codecentric's Atlassian experts conducted workshops with IUG to understand the company's specific needs and challenges.
Together, the implementation plans were then coordinated to ensure that the solutions were optimally tailored to the requirements of IUG. For example, the consistent use of labels and teams introduced in Jira not only increase user-friendliness, but also provide a better overview of the dependencies between topics and teams.
The issues hierarchy structure was extended to provide a detailed representation of all the components of the implementation project. These measures enable IU to manage a large number of projects simultaneously via an advanced roadmap and communicate project status transparently in real time.
In addition, codecentric developed a bespoke automation solution that significantly accelerates the process of copying project plans and minimizes the risk of errors.

During the project period of almost three months, coordination meetings were held on a one- to two-weekly basis where the current project progress and the next steps were discussed. Possible implementation options were outlined on a Miro board or on the basis of a POC in codecentric’s demo Jira instance .

Result

IUG has been able to significantly increase the efficiency and transparency of its project management through the measures introduced by the project. The automation solution reduced the time it takes to copy project plans by 70% from 10 to 3 hours, and ensures high data quality with fewer errors. The advanced hierarchy enables detailed project planning and control, while new filters and dashboards provide real-time visibility of project status. The use of labels and teams also allowed IUG colleagues who had few points of contact with Jira to be better involved in the project. The sum of the improvements has boosted the trust and satisfaction of the stakeholders and ensured optimum transparency over the course of the project.