How Yale School of Management meets lofty service expectations in higher education with Atlassian

Consumer expectations for service have surged in the digital era. These high standards now extend into professional settings too, where customers assume they will get the same quality service from their employer and colleagues as they do outside of work. 

Many businesses and organizations, especially those in traditional sectors like education, are struggling to keep up – not so for the Yale School of Management (SOM), a graduate school serving over a thousand students on campus and around the world. While many established IT professionals would be reluctant to change their ways and find new solutions to meet modern users’ needs, SOM’s CIO Ken Wieler has risen to the challenge.

Since implementing Atlassian, SOM’s IT team has transformed the customer experience, inside and out. In addition to dramatically improving service to the Yale SOM community (to the tune of a 4.8 out of 5 satisfaction rating) and reducing the client services team’s time to resolution (by 57 percent!), they’ve also increased internal transparency and accountability while positioning SOM as a trailblazer for educational institutions around the world.

Matt says this is one example of a solution that solves several problems at once, adding value on multiple fronts. “These tools improve service because we can address issues immediately,” he explains. “They also give us better metrics to tell how many issues we’re having and understand whether they’re a malfunction or if a specific user needs extra training and support. We can’t do without that.”

The SOM IT department also set up a three-tiered service desk, aggregating the team’s detailed notes on policies, procedures, and FAQs in an extensive self-service catalog in Confluence. This catalog serves as a knowledge base for the community as well as the employees serving them.

As these solutions were launched and adopted, non-technical departments at SOM began to consider how Atlassian could help solve their challenges too. For instance, Director of Digital Media Amy Kundrat saw an opportunity to apply Atlassian in the Communications department. She worked with DevOps to set up Jira Service Management for managing requests for communications and marketing materials like brochures, business cards, and other collateral; Confluence for documenting current projects and historical content; and Jira for project management. About half of the department organically adopted the new solution. Amy then worked with DevOps to bring adoption to 100 percent.

Matt says Atlassian has now become “indispensable” for SOM’s IT team. Ken adds, “These tools have immensely improved our service. Now we can’t do without them because our community is used to that level of service.” As more departments like Communications catch on, Matt and Ken both expect Atlassian’s impact on the school and its community to grow.

The number of service requests has also decreased by 50 percent since 2017 thanks to a number of improvements, including standardizing on Confluence as the team’s internal and customer-facing knowledge base to support more self-service.

Matt says that, while change management is rarely easy, it has been worth it for SOM. "It’s no small task to change the culture of a workplace. Having Atlassian built around and helping to evolve our practices, along with internal champions for adopting Atlassian and service management methodology, has been and continues to be instrumental in any improvements."

In addition to elevating service levels, Client Services’ Connie Wilson and Digital Media’s Amy Kundrat say they love the transparency and accountability Atlassian gives their teams. Amy explains, “I sit next to a colleague who produces video. If I need that video for a campaign, I can look in Jira to see who’s producing the video, what the video is for, the status of the task, and more. This has helped us work more efficiently and significantly cut down on meetings and emails.”

Ken reports that other departments, as well as other schools throughout Yale, are recognizing the difference SOM’s unique, customer-centric approach is making and asking how they can implement similar solutions.

“When students, faculty, and staff have a question, whether it is regarding technology, facilities or other services, they don't care where the support is coming from – they just want to get help,” Ken says. "Our goal is to work collaboratively with all SOM departments to have a single service delivery methodology so we can route any request to the right person using tools such as Atlassian offers. It’s an ambitious vision, but with everyone’s support, I feel we can get there."