Driving Marketing Efficiency with Jira to Cut Project Time by 70% for a Leading EdTech Company
Our client
This leading educational technology company helps universities design, deliver, and support online programs. Their platform serves students globally, powering high-quality digital education at scale. In 2024, the company migrated to Atlassian Cloud and consolidated workflows across departments. Within months of the migration, their marketing teams struggled to understand project timelines, team capacity, and task management. Jira didn’t provide the clarity needed, limiting their ability to deliver work effectively.
Challenge
Six months after the cloud migration, the marketing team was still lacking visibility into project management. Despite using Jira, the teams were unable to:
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Forecast timelines or completion dates.
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Estimate team effort or capacity.
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Track project durations accurately.
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Identify where tasks or projects were delayed or stuck in the process.
This lack of transparency made planning difficult and caused frustration across departments. Teams weren’t aligned on how tasks should progress, and the system reinforced inefficiencies and silos.
The company reached out to Isos Technology to run a short discovery engagement designed to identify process pain points and recommend practical changes quickly. We identified gaps between the tools, how teams worked, and found opportunities for foundational improvements.
Solution
Based on insights from the discovery work, Isos developed a three-phase approach:
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Redesign Jira workflows and issue hierarchy to reflect real-world team processes more accurately.
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Pilot a new task management approach with a cross-functional team, supported by tailored training.
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Implement visibility through customized dashboards and reports for real-time metrics and clear project tracking.
An Isos Master Practitioner, who brings deep Atlassian expertise and hands-on change management experience, guided the implementation, coached the team through the transition, and ensured Jira delivered real business value.
We began by creating a new task hierarchy and workflow tailored to the client’s needs. We soft-piloted the system with the project steering committee, then trained a pilot team to adopt the new approach. The team shifted their focus from individual tasks to shared outcomes, which fostered better collaboration, improved communication, and faster execution.
When shared services teams struggled with multiple sources of work, Isos built custom Jira boards to centralize task management, eliminating confusion. Once this was addressed, nearly 100% of team members expressed interest in continuing with the new system.
Results
- Improved cross-team collaboration and alignment on project timelines.
- Increased transparency into task progress and process bottlenecks.
- Better understanding of effort, task prioritization, and timelines across teams.
- Clear visibility into task delays and blocked work.
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