Based in Franklin, Tennessee, Metova develops custom mobile apps for some of the world’s most respected brands, including members of the social, media, technology and healthcare industries.
As an early follower of agile software development–a turbo-charged, goal-oriented engineering methodology–Metova relies on the full Atlassian suite to maintain a high standard of customer service. Atlassian’s products allow its developers to react immediately to evolving customer needs.
According to Dave Lane, VP of technology at Metova: “The biggest benefit for us is clear and open communication with our customers. Your products, especially JIRA and Confluence, allow us to clearly set expectations. They have opened up lines of communication with our customers. I don’t think we can live without; it’s incredible being able to share everything with our customers.”
Living Contracts in JIRA
Coding and releasing software continuously requires a seamless, transparent workflow, which was much more of a challenge before Metova met Atlassian. After transitioning to JIRA, Metova began using Confluence, HipChat, Crucible, Crowd, Bamboo, FishEye, and of course, GreenHopper, Atlassian’s agile project management board.
“Our developers work out of JIRA’s task boards. We use it to break down work and estimate projects, which turns into customer contracts. As soon as a customer signs, we can start working right away since all the work is mapped out and prioritized. JIRA is essentially a living contract for all our agile development work,” Lane said.
Interestingly, instead of emails, Metova’s customers are encouraged to report bugs in JIRA and suggest feature ideas in Confluence. Metova’s developers assign issues to their customers when they have questions. “It’s incredible being able to share so easily with our customers, and know they’re seeing exactly what we’re seeing,” Lane said.
Caleb Hamilton, lead software developer at Metova, said he has been amazed by the productivity benefits. “As as a developer we do a lot of context switching here. With all the work laid out already in Confluence and prioritized in JIRA, I can jump right into a new project.”
Managing Recruitment With Atlassian
Metova also uses JIRA to manage tasks related to sales and the recruitment process. All projects and potential candidates are issued JIRA tickets, and anyone in the company can track the status.
“I tried using a spreadsheet for a month. And then one day it hit me that I was trying to rebuild the GreenHopper task board,” Lane said.
The way Metova likes to think of Atlassian is that it was able to take a development process, and use Atlassian’s products to wrap a business around it.
“Everything we do—client projects, recruitment—they are all prioritized, all scheduled into an iteration, which lets us work very efficiently,” Lane said.
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