MYOB + Atlassian
Our customers are at the heart of everything that we do, and Jira Plans definitely plays a pivotal role in helping us achieve the best delivery outcomes for our customers.
- Pratik Patil, Delivery Manager
Industry
Internet & Software
Locations
Headquarters in Cremorne, Australia
Number of Users
> 1,700
Atlassian Products
Apps
MYOB increases visibility, clarity, and alignment with the help of Jira Plans in Jira
As MYOB’s Small Medium Enterprises (SME) team expanded and became more cross-functional, the company’s software planning and delivery processes began to experience growing pains. Tracking and managing work across so many teams and projects were becoming more complex, and there was no way to view projects, track progress, or share updates with stakeholders holistically. By implementing Jira Plans in Jira, SME has gained end-to-end visibility into roadmaps, dependencies, and timelines across all functions (not just technical delivery). By working in unison toward their shared goals, the team has also unlocked a new way to minimize risk and deliver even more value to their customers.
MYOB delivers end-to-end business management tools and accounting solutions for SMEs, the mid-market, and direct to businesses, as well as a network for accountants, bookkeepers, and consultants, in Australia and New Zealand. These tools provide businesses with greater visibility into company performance, enabling their people to have the right conversations and make the right decisions. But the MYOB SME division faced the inevitable challenges of a growing, cross-functional team; multiple domains; and over 1,000 technology projects across the company.
The SME department, the largest business unit in the company, had adopted Jira Cloud Premium for project planning and tracking, along with Confluence for capturing requirements and collaborating. As the department expanded, so did the need to track and manage work across many teams and holistically view projects, stay on top of progress, and share updates.
By implementing Plans in Jira, SME gained end-to-end visibility of the entire delivery process and discovered a new way to keep stakeholders across the organization focused on the same goals and priorities. With more clarity and alignment, the team has substantially improved planning and delivery – a vital step in helping MYOB further grow their customer base, maintain a competitive advantage, and help even more businesses succeed.
Jira Plans has created better visibility of the overall program of work and helps our multiple teams align their delivery plans with each other, so we have better clarity of all the intricacies and dependencies.”
Pratik Patil, Delivery Manager
Growing pains demand a more sophisticated roadmapping solution
When MYOB’s SME department was smaller, it was easy for employees to track everything manually or rely on individual knowledge rather than updating artifacts. However, as the business unit expanded to over 450 cross-functional employees across 30-plus teams and seven domains, planning and delivery became far more complicated.
Visibility was one of their biggest challenges. It was essential for the team to have a full, program-level view of work, dependencies, or roadmaps across all verticals. Without a holistic view, each team was at risk of losing sight of the big picture, and retreating into work silos. It was critical for stakeholders, leaders, and the project teams themselves to maintain clarity around the status of deliverables and when work would be completed.
In response to these pain points, Delivery Manager Pratik Patil and his team began exploring a better solution. Already power users of Jira, they researched untapped features that might meet their needs. Jira Plans emerged as a promising fix, so they agreed to pilot it in their small business vertical.
Pro tip from Pratik: Identify clear objectives for what you’re trying to solve or achieve first.
The easiest targets to hit are the ones that are well-defined from the start. Before implementing or expanding Jira Plans, outline a clear definition of success or existing pain points you’re trying to alleviate. Then, use this information as your North Star to keep everyone aligned and maximize effectiveness.
[Jira Plans] also has given cross-functional team members an equal voice, since we’ve increased our focus on making sure that we consider the entire experience of getting value into the hands of our customers.”
Pratik Patil, Delivery Manager
A pilot lays the groundwork for greater visibility, clarity, and alignment
By embedding Jira Plans into SME’s bi-weekly, cross-functional team meeting, known as the Vertical Wall Walk, the team hoped to validate the feature set and gather feedback before rolling it out across the organization.
Pro tip from Pratik: Start simple, and consider scaling up with a pilot.
Implementing a new tool or launching a new initiative can be intimidating for even the most ambitious teams. Relieve stress and minimize risk by starting with baby steps or a pilot project to prove the concept and achieve some quick wins, which you can then use to build a business case and gain buy-in for expansion.
Pratik’s team began by creating a new plan in Jira Plans. They set up the hierarchy to represent MYOB’s program structure and make it easy to visualize the plan. It was particularly important to be able to see top-level objectives, then drill down to multiple initiatives within individual project teams followed by epics and features that make up each initiative.
Next, delivery teams pulled their individual projects into Jira Plans, which enabled everyone to see cross-functional information like go-to-market schedules and release dates. SME then mapped out all dependencies, including start and end dates, to create more accurate and thorough timelines.
Pro tip from Pratik: Build a cross-functional plan.
Invite cross-functional teams, including non-technical departments, to use Jira Plans or benefit from its insights. This ensures plans will be more comprehensive and accurate, while helping others make better decisions, too.
For example, when MYOB builds a new feature, they include researchers, designers, engineers, and go-to-market specialists in the process and add their work to Jira Plans. This approach increases visibility and keeps everyone aligned from beginning to end (not just during technical delivery) as they work toward a shared goal.
In a single day, SME finished setting up the pilot and was already making progress toward end-to-end visibility across all functions, addressing risks faster, and working together to deliver even more value to their customers.
We can now visualize when things are at risk of falling behind and can have the right conversations between people and teams.”
Pratik Patil, Delivery Manager
Jira Plans enhances a longstanding team ritual
With setup complete, Pratik’s team started using Jira Plans during their bi-weekly SME Vertical Wall Walk. The ritual brings cross-functional team members together (executive leadership, Product Delivery, Sales, Marketing, Support, Engineering, Tech Leads, and Architects) to review project progress. They “walk” through the portfolio view as a group, discussing in-flight initiatives, upcoming market moments, and takeaways from prior releases.
Pro tip from Pratik: Incorporate Jira Plans into rituals to keep team members and data updated and in sync.
Like many tools and feature sets, Jira Plans is most useful when it’s kept up to date and used regularly. Embedding the solution into team rituals creates a simple reminder to update projects with the most recent, accurate information.
As SME leveraged Jira Plans during the Vertical Wall Walk, they found several features refreshingly useful. First, the single program-level view provided an overview of top-level objectives, along with the ability to dive deeper into the specific smaller streams of work. Senior leaders appreciated the overview, while others working on strategy and implementation appreciated all the details. Filtering by individual teams allowed them to see what each team was working on. Creating project- and program-specific plans also helped map out dependencies for each one and minimize risks.
In addition, the team enjoyed having more visibility into start and end dates, roll-up dates at a glance (especially when there was uncertainty around exact dates), along with the visual cues of important upcoming dates. Seeing Market Moments (markers, milestones, or release dates plotted on timeline view) and watching the color-coded markers alerted team members if milestones were at risk or tasks didn’t align with the release date.
By better understanding timelines and dependencies, the team could focus on the right priorities and raise a flag if projects were falling behind or steering off course. “Jira Plans has created better visibility of the overall program of work and helps our multiple teams align their delivery plans with each other, so we have better clarity of all the intricacies and dependencies,” Pratik says. “It also has given cross-functional team members an equal voice, since we’ve increased our focus on making sure that we consider the entire experience of getting value into the hands of our customers. We can now visualize when things are at risk of falling behind and can have the right conversations between people and teams.”
“The best delivery outcomes for our customers”
MYOB’s pilot of Jira Plans within SME delivered on all of their goals and more. They now have significantly more clarity, visibility, and alignment within the Delivery, Product, and Engineering departments as well as across the organization. With this level of digestible information at their fingertips, all users, stakeholders, and leaders feel confident they can work together to make the right decisions for their customers.
As MYOB expands Jira Plans to other teams, they’re anticipating even more ways the feature set can better support their employees and customers. Pratik says, “Our customers are at the heart of everything we do, and Jira Plans definitely plays a pivotal role in helping us achieve the best delivery outcomes for our customers.”