Mapbox consolidates workflows and unifies collaboration

Our work involved

• Jira administration
• Workflow automation
• Training and coaching
• Knowledge base creation

Impact

If you’ve ever come across a customized online map, chances are it was powered by Mapbox – an American provider of precise location data and developer tools. Its custom maps are used by companies like CNN, Instacart, BMW, and the New York Times, reaching over 700 million people worldwide.

690+ Mapboxers were managing their projects across various tools such as G Suite, Monday.com, GitHub, and ZenHub. While this arrangement gave flexibility to each team, it created a pressing problem for the entire organization.

Challenge

Scattered workflows across multiple tools

Mapbox was facing issues in executing cross-functional projects due to scattered workflows across different tools. There was considerable duplication of planning and reporting, creating unnecessary overhead.

Additionally, Mapbox lacked a systematic way to translate customer insights into features. It didn’t help that customer feedback and product backlog were being managed in separate tools, creating silos between teams. Therefore, Mapbox decided to adopt a unified, central tool for project tracking and product deliverables.

Consolidation with Jira, Confluence, and JSM

Mapbox tested multiple solutions before turning its attention toward the Atlassian suite. It finally chose Atlassian because the majority of its team had used Atlassian tools before, which would reduce friction during migration. The Atlassian ecosystem could also solve both its external and internal collaboration challenges.

Ecosystem consolidation

Our consultants teamed up with Mapbox to manage the migration. The team decided to consolidate all workflows in the following three tools:

• Jira – for internal product development workflows
• Confluence– for housing all resources and documentation
• Jira Service Management – for ITSM (IT service management)

This level of enthusiasm over creating a common, central tool for project tracking and product deliverables is everything we expected as we worked with Modus Create. – Prafulla Patil, Head of Enterprise Technology at Mapbox

Phased rollout for smooth adoption

The teams at Mapbox began a phased adoption approach, starting with a pilot group and then opening access to the rest of the company. This helped them figure out the exact number of Jira projects and Confluence spaces required for the entire organization.

Phases

This pilot grew from one to four teams as people were eager to get in as soon as possible to test the new platform. Within four months, all the pilot teams were actively testing the new tools.

As Mapbox didn’t have Jira administration experience, our consultants acted as Jira admins and helped the team answer questions such as:

• Which Jira and Confluence features work best for the team?
• Which third-party apps should be installed?
• What access and permission settings would be most suitable?

Building a team of Jira heroes

Mapbox created a Change Champions group formed by representatives from each team. Our Jira experts held open office hours with the group to answer any questions on Jira, Confluence, or JSM implementation. We shared industry best practices on how teams could form their Jira projects and Confluence spaces, including recommendations on automation. This helped Mapbox create a group of experts who can act as Jira admins for their respective teams.

Within two months of the pilot period, 56 development teams successfully moved to Jira, and 17 internal service teams migrated to JSM.

Impact

Improved collaboration and productivity

Adopting Jira, Confluence, and JSM helped Mapbox improve collaboration within its team and with its customers. An internal study found that this led to a 67.8% increase in team productivity. Streamlined operational workflows reduced the efforts around approvals and tracking by 10% across product and administration teams.

Not only did the team give us the tools, they share knowledge on how to use the tools. – Cornelia Kolesnyk, IT Product Manager at Mapbox

The teams took to the new process, with a 90% customer adoption in the first two months of launching the platform. Mapbox also received a 5/5 average rating over 236 user reviews in the quarter after the migration, reaffirming the success of the migration.

In just four months, Mapbox was able to create a single source of truth for its entire organization and bring unprecedented transparency to all its workflows. Its new process is secure and future-proof, allowing Mapbox to scale effortlessly as its team and customers grow.