Helvetia is a quality-oriented insurance company with over 150 years of experience. One of the leading insurance companies in Switzerland, it offers all types of insurance. More than 1 million Helvetia customers are served by approximately 3,700 employees in 43 branches. With a comprehensive product range, Helvetia offers everything in one place, from private and occupational pension plans to life insurance and mortgages – for individuals and SMEs. Helvetia Switzerland belongs to a strong group that also operates in Germany, Italy, Spain, Austria and France.
The challenge
The goal of the project was to optimize task management. This meant bringing in professional support and development as well as improving the tools that help manage the initiatives and projects which require changes in the software applications. Helvetia has dozens of software applications, which are continually being developed and maintained. One challenge in the project was getting a complete overview of all scheduled and ongoing tasks. This was especially difficult because the tasks had always been managed in separate systems, so creating a consolidated overview required a lot of effort. But the biggest challenge was to bring the different interests of different departments and stakeholders together, consolidate their requirements and determine the processes and everyone’s roles and responsibilities to meet them.
The solution
A situation analysis was carried out, with different solutions evaluated and assessed. Helvetia decided to use the Atlassian toolchain, especially JIRA and Confluence. A joint project team designed the business and technical aspects of the solution, which was then implemented by Mimacom. User groups gave early-stage and regular feedback on a prototype system, improving the solution and making it better accepted. Since August 2014, Helvetia has had a standardized process and tools for maintenance and further development of tasks. Each application is run as a separate project in JIRA and activates changes in each job. This allows early identification and thus better coordination of the systems that need to be adjusted. Clarity about upcoming processes supports the interactions between the business units and IT, clearly shows who is responsible for what and creates transparency about the status of each job. Anyone who needs a quick overview of the status of jobs and of the jobs that arescheduled for each software release can find it on the dashboard tailored to each user’s roles. Modular training, supported by an e-learning platform, ensured the successful implementation of the project.
How Mimacom helped
Mimacom has supported Helvetia in the design, implementation and rollout of task management with the Atlassian toolchain and created the online help for processes, tasks, roles, and tools. We used confidence-building measures including communications and training to meet the challenges such a change project brings with it. Only six months after its introduction, the task management system has met with broad acceptance and is fully utilized and continuously adapted to new circumstances.The professional support Mimacom, with its years of experience, offered was a key success factor for the implementation of this project.
«Transparency and commitment in our cooperation, along with informed decision-making let us optimize our strengths and thus give us the best possible result.»
