To support our growing team and increasingly complex machine building projects, we’ve implemented Jira and Confluence across Tech Group with the help of Trinidad Wiseman.
Jira helps us manage tasks, timelines, and collaboration more efficiently, while Confluence gives us a central space for documentation, meeting notes, and internal knowledge sharing. Together, they’re helping us stay aligned, reduce manual work, and keep projects moving smoothly.
This is part of our ongoing effort to improve transparency, traceability, and teamwork.
Project start: winter 2021.
Identifying the Problem
At Tech Group, over 120 specialists work closely together to build complex machines. Before we introduced Jira and Confluence, our teams shared information through a mix of verbal communication, emails, Excel sheets, ERP systems, and outdated product forms. These multiple channels created confusion.
The biggest issue was the lack of a central, transparent system. Email chains were hard to follow, tasks were difficult to track, and important details could sometimes get buried or lost. This made it challenging for departments to stay aligned and added unnecessary management overhead.
To solve this, our team began testing Jira internally. Even during the trial phase, we saw its potential; but we also realized we needed expert guidance to make the most of it. Which led us to partner with Trinidad Wiseman.
Mapping Needs
Every company is different, so the collaboration started with understanding Tech Group’s goals and current workflows. Together we mapped out processes, identified pain points, and created a clear action plan.
For Jira, the first milestone was a Proof of Concept (PoC). We took an agile, iterative approach, starting with mapping the full production process, from sales to quality assurance, and working closely with department managers. Based on this, we built custom workflows, statuses, and boards, validating each step through demos and feedback.
After presenting the first PoC to a wider group, we made structural changes based on input from users. This feedback loop helped us refine the setup until it met the needs of all departments.
We also wanted to improve internal communication. For the Confluence-based intranet, we kicked off with a workshop, bringing together key people from different departments and UX/UI experts from Trinidad Wiseman. This helped all parties understand the business, structure, and communication challenges, laying the foundation for a solution that supports our daily work.
Setting Up Jira
We started by aligning Jira with our organisational structure and core processes. Instead of creating separate projects for each department, we built a unified Jira project that reflects how our teams collaborate.
We use three ticket levels, with Epics at the top. Each Epic typically represents a customer machine order, a machine series, or a part of one order (e.g. if the machines are delivered in batches). This setup gives us a clear overview of both the big picture and the detailed steps involved.
Under each Epic, teams create tasks related to that order. We created 17 custom ticket types, including Sales, Design, Purchases, Picks, Production, Testing, Packaging, and Logistics. Each department has its own workflow – some more complex than others – but we avoided over-restricting movement between statuses to keep things flexible.
We also added custom fields to each ticket to capture key details like deadlines, responsible persons, and order-specific info. To keep the interface user-friendly, we grouped contextually similar fields together into tabs and arranged them in a consistent, intuitive layout.
Aggregated and Department-Specific View for Work Management
Jira’s board system gives us powerful ways to manage and visualise work. We use around a dozen boards: one aggregated board showing all Epics (orders), and department-specific boards.
Our goal was to make daily work smoother and faster. For example, if a Problem ticket is assigned to someone in the Design department, it automatically appears on the Design board. This dynamic logic applies across all departments, ensuring tickets are always visible where they’re needed.
To improve usability, we use quick filters on each board, making it easy to find tickets by assignee or customer. We also introduced color coding for customers, and added priority and deadline indicators to ticket cards for faster scanning.
For team leads and department heads, we built custom dashboards using Jira gadgets. These dashboards show relevant data at a glance; for example, the Head of Production sees all active machine orders sorted by delivery date, along with Problem tickets assigned to their team, including current status and assignee.
Figure 1. The production department’s Kanban board.
Automation Saves Time and Reduces Risk
Before going live with Jira, we made sure every department was well-prepared. We held training sessions and walkthroughs for all users, covering both the overall process and individual dashboards. Thanks to this groundwork, the launch went smoothly, about six months after the project began.
Since going live, the need for some additional works has appeared as users become more aware of the application’s functionalities and possibilities as they use it on a daily basis. In turn, this creates room for new ideas.
Validation and Implementing the Solutions
Initially, we used Jira Automation, which automatically created tickets and copied information. But as the system evolved and new fields were added, each automation rule had to be manually reviewed and updated, creating a heavy administrative load and increasing the risk of errors.
To reduce repetitive tasks and simplify rule management, we built custom automations tailored to Tech Group’s workflows. This was one of the most time-consuming parts of the implementation.
For example:
- When Production marks an Epic ticket as ready for delivery, an automation can trigger a new ticket for the Quality department to send a customer satisfaction survey.
- When a deadline is updated on an Epic ticket, another automation syncs that change to all related sub-tickets, unless the sub-ticket already has a manually updated date.
Figure 3. An automation rule. The head of the production department wishes to be kept up to date on any issues connected to the current production ticket. The automation automatically links the Problem ticket assigned to that Epic with the production ticket so that the head of production can immediately see it.
Improving Internal Communication with a Confluence-Based Intranet
We began the project in February 2023 and completed it by November. The goal was to centralise key content like induction materials, company updates, HR processes, and project documentation.
Mapping Needs and Planning the Structure
We kicked things off with a workshop involving key people from different departments. Together, we identified improvement areas across three categories:
- General intranet content
- HR-related information
- Production project documentation
This helped us prioritise what to build first and ensured the intranet would support both daily tasks and long-term collaboration.
Designing for Usability and Brand Consistency
Navigation and design were just as important as content. We worked closely with department reps to define subject groups like “Reimbursement of expenses,” “Vacation types,” and “Our people,” each with relevant sub-sections.
To create a user-friendly and visually consistent experience, we used the Refined app for Confluence. This allowed us to:
- Follow Tech Group’s brand style guide
- Simplify the default Confluence interface
- Make the system easy to manage going forward
Testing, Training, and Launching
Once the first version was ready, we tested it with real users from different departments. We gave them tasks to complete using the intranet and observed how well they navigated the system, understood the content, and interacted with visual elements. Based on feedback, we made improvements to ensure clarity and ease of use.
To support the rollout, we created user manuals covering both Confluence basics and specific processes, like how to submit a vacation request. We also ran a training session to help employees create better content, use macros, build tables of contents, and structure pages effectively.
The Result
Today, Tech Group has a fully integrated Jira system for project management and task tracking, and a Confluence-based intranet that supports internal communication and documentation. Together, these tools have helped us centralise information, improve visibility across departments, and simplify daily work.
We’re grateful to Trinidad Wiseman for their expertise and collaboration throughout the project. And the work doesn’t stop here, ongoing use of the systems continues to spark new ideas for improvement.
“The cooperation between Trinidad Wiseman and Tech Group has been smooth and effective – all presented tasks have been successfully implemented and issues have been resolved quickly and professionally.”