Custodians of PRINCE2 and ITIL standards adopt Jira

ABOUT AXELOS

Founded in 2013, Axelos is a dynamic and fast-growing organization formed as a joint venture company between the UK’s Cabinet Office and Capita plc. In its role as the guardian for PRINCE2 and ITIL, the most widely-used standards for project and IT Service Management, Axelos promotes and supports the development of best practice communities across the globe.

From its inception, Axelos was charged with an ambitious program to rapidly develop applications that would support a new business model. According to Matthew Cunliffe, Test Manager at Axelos:

”As a start-up, our goal was to be fresh, small and dynamic. We needed to deliver products quickly and to support that goal, we needed to manage and deliver multiple products working with many partners. Application lifecycle management and testing tools were essential to make this process more efficient.”

SELECTING THE RIGHT TOOLS FOR THE JOB

In selecting tools, Matthew was looking for a specific mixture of qualities:

”Axelos is all about delivering best practice. We were looking to find not only the best product available, but also one that was suitable for a start-up. That meant we needed a good balance between cost, functionality and ease-of-use. Jira and Confluence perfectly matched our requirements.”

With the tools selected, Axelos approached Valiantys for support with implementation and training to ensure the team would make best use of the new software. Valiantys assisted with integration of Confluence and Jira, along with Jira Agile to align the tools with the Axelos approach to Agile project management.

RAPID IMPLEMENTATION

At this stage, a key requirement for Axelos was a quick implementation of the Atlassian suite. To ensure an on-time delivery, the implementation phase was broken down into two days, covering three main areas: gathering of requirements, implementation and testing. To meet a demanding deadline, Valiantys proposed an intensive session with Axelos to explore the organization’s vision for Jira. Further sessions followed to scope out the implementation process for the organization’s requirements.

According to Cunliffe, Valiantys consultants provided highly competent assistance, enabling Axelos not only to quickly grasp the capabilities of Jira, but to ensure they could use it to its maximum potential.

AGILE FROM THE OUTSET

Immediately following the implementation and training, Axelos was able to forge ahead with its first Agile project, managing it from start to finish. Within four weeks, Axelos had defined all business requirements, built user stories, and started using the Agile functionality to run its sprints. As a result, project managers could identify stories that were outstanding and tasks that warranted attention. At a glance, the Axelos team could see an overview of progress, quickly reprioritize tasks and direct partners to efforts accordingly.

Given his considerable experience of a range of comparable tools, Matthew Cunliffe was frank about his views on Jira:

”Atlassian tools are just more versatile than other products I’ve come across. With some others, we would have been stuck with limited products, extensive implementation and integration issues, and high costs. Atlassian was all there, ready to use and affordable.”

AT A GLANCE

• Software publisher of PRINCE2 and ITIL found Atlassian products to be a perfect match for them.
• AXELOS was able to deliver their first projects in just four weeks after first contact with Valiantys.
• Intuitive interface of Atlassian products allowed AXELOS to master Jira and Confluence very quickly.
• Enables project managers to always be in control of projects at AXELOS.