At Archimedes, we create exhibitions, brand spaces, and interactive installations for science centers, public institutions, and corporate clients worldwide. We embrace a highly integrated development process that covers project lifecycles from conception to fabrication to deployment. We started by using JIRA for small software projects and over the years increased our use of Atlassian products to the point where they are deeply tied to all our business processes and define a single source of truth for HR, cash flow management, procurement, in-house manufacturing – literally everything from buying the first washer to making our products shine. In this talk, learn how Atlassian helped us: -find transparency through defined processes -coordinate complex, fast-paced projects -integrate more workflows -balance workloads across different teams -manage thousands of issues every day Stephan Spenling, CTO, Archimedes Exhibitions GmbH

1. Adopting Atlassian Tools
How Archimedes uses Atlassian tools across all teams
STEPHAN SPENLING | ARCHIMEDES EXHIBITIONS | SPS@AMDX.DE

2. /*
No, we are not
only doing
software…
*/

3. /*
we do
product design,
fabrication and
deployment
as well!

4. Science Center Ostrava
End-to-End production on 4000 sqm
130 exhibits
6 month project time
100 co-workers

5. Science Tunnel
Traveling exhibition
Touring since 2000
3 iterations
40+ venues world wide

6. Science Express India
Drop-in deployment of an exhibition in railroad coaches
6 month project time
50 co-workers
6 years operation time
7 million visitors

7. Felix - The Robot
Interactive robot installation
Emotion recognition software
11 motors to mimic facial expressions
3 month project time

9. We specialize in
highly customized
lot size 1 productions
in exhibit-related services
AMDX

10. Get live
project data
of highly dynamic
business processes in
a multi-disciplinary
creative agency.
Do better
forecasts
for workload, cashflow
and revenue
Gain
transparency
by creating a
Single Source of Truth
for all business data and
project communication
Implementation Goals

11. Agenda
1. Company
2. Main Challenges
3. Toolbox
4. How to get the data in
5. How to get the team aligned
6. Conclusion

12. Company Profile
Archimedes Exhibitions GmbH (AMDX)

13. We are one-stop-shop
covering the complete
project lifecycle
Ideas, content, media creation, product
design, project management, hard-/
software dev, system design, crafts, digital
manufacturing

14. Wild at heart -
punk start in post-wall
Berlin
AMDX provides exhibit-related services
since 1996

15. Team
Core team: 50 tightly-integrated versatile specialists
Network: 50 loosely associated co-workers
Project-based Business
20 simultaneous projects
Project Time
As short as the delivery times for components
AMDX in
Numbers
Total Visitors
20M+ in all-times / all-venues

16. Main challenges
In a fast-paced project-based business

17. Why?
Dramatic Market Changes
More complex deliverables,
in shorter time and with
decreasing budget

18. Classic communication via
email, spreadsheets and
schedules fail to fit to the
new demands
Pain:
Endless email threads
and outdated
spreadsheets

19. Live data - driven by workflows,
guided by permissions and used
throughout the company
Cure:
Single Source of Truth

20. Need for user-
friendly,
scalable,
adjustable
solutions
Get the Team involved

21. Toolbox
Our favourite Atlassian tools and add-ons

22. Atlassian tools
… we use to plan, track and organize our work
JIRA
Issue tracking
Confluence
Documentation
HipChat
Ad hoc
communication
Bitbucket
For the devs

23. EAZYBI
Reports
Aggregated view of project
data in JIRA
Customs
calculations
Based on JIRA data and external
data sources
Dashboards
Embedded in Confluence
templates

24. Log work
Mandatory for all team members
Approval process
To ensure valid data
Labor hours
Calculation
See below
weißraum in der mitte
wegschneiden!
Timesheets

25. Organize
The myriad of Issue
perspectives and structures
Slice and dice
Drill down from overview to
the tiny details
Aggregate and
combine
To get all facets of the data
Structure

26. Custom fields Issue types Workflows Permissions
Jira Mapping

27. La Machiná
• Project metadata
• Cash inflow
• Time tracking
• Procurements
• Operating budget
• Sales funnel
• Workload Estimates

28. La Machiná
• Forecasts
• Approvals
• Project documentation+
communication
• External sharing
• Post Mortem Analysis
• Project metadata
• Cash inflow
• Time tracking
• Procurements
• Operating budget
• Sales funnel
• Workload Estimates

29. How to get the data in?
Tailoring JIRA to our needs

30. 60%
Labor cost of total project expenses

31. Employees
Single source for overtime calculation of
employees
Freelancer
Basis for getting approval for worked hours
and invoicing
Get valid
data -
Everyone…
logs in JIRA

32. Hourly rate database
Labor Cost
Join in EasyBITime tracking data

33. Labor cost
Per project
Get the data for effective
project management
Per department
Get valid data for lessons
learned
Company-wide
Get the bird’s-eye view

34. 40%
Material cost of total project expenses

35. Stats
50% of our procurements are less than 100€
500 procurements per project on average
Why not centralized?
Procurement processes require specialized
knowledge - dispatching eats up the time
budget
Distributed
acquisition &
procurement
in JIRA

36. Procurement Workflow
This is Marco,
our Systems
Designer

37. Marco has a great idea
for an exhibit...

38. … but to prototype his idea
he needs a very special
servo motor ...

39. … easy! He writes a
procurement ticket, ...

40. … enters the estimated expenses
and gets the issue ID ...
Place the order
Planned
Approval
In House

41. With this issue ID he
reaches out for quotes…
(as internal ref. number)
Place the order
Planned
Approval
In House

42. He gets an approval for the
expenses from the project
lead
Place the order
Planned
Approval
In House

43. Marco orders the servo
motors and enters the delivery
date
Place the order
Planned
Approval
In House

44. … OMG, the motor arrived.
Great! ...
Place the order
Planned
Approval
In House

45. ... Marco starts prototyping
the exhibit ...
Place the order
Planned
Approval
In House
...get to work

47. Lucky Cat
7×7 Lucky Cats each with 2 Servos
24 weeks development time
20 Coworkers
200+ Issues

48. Table Grid
Custom field for gathering items
in the shopping cart
Calculated Total
A scripted custom field to get
the total amount of the order
Accounting Fields
For payment method, accounting
status and invoice number
Procurement issue type

49. 1
Outgoing invoice per workday

50. Dedicated bookkeeping project
Issues are accounting processes, Invoices are Sub-
Tasks
Schedule invoices
Set and follow up on invoicing dates and due dates
Invoicing
in JIRA
Monitor cash inflow
By aggregating issue data over time
Overdue loop
Automatic status adjustment for overdue invoices

51. X Y Z ?
Making sense out of the aggregated data
+ + =

52. Material/Labor costs
Imported from JIRA, calculated in
EasyBI
Operating costs
Imported from a data base
= Company Health
Is the live-view aggregate of the
input data
Cash inflow
Each instalment is related
to an issue
x+y+z=company health

53. (Non-)billable
We use the JIRA project category to
distinguish
Average hourly rate
Important measure for Forecast
Department hours
For staffing
Project team hours
For poor man’s forecast
Data Mining

54. How to get the Team aligned
Sharing project information

55. 99%
adoption rate throughout our company

56. Track business opportunities
Pitches, competitions, tenders, collaborations, …
Get personalities
on Board

57. Staged rolloutMapped to
culture
Single Source
of Truth
Introducing new workflows
User training

58. 20
Simultaneous Projects = high throughput

59. Centralized Aggregation
Everyone knows the up-to-date schedule, Budget,
billable Workload
Exchange map for territory
Know the road before you!
Embrace
estimates and
schedules
Distributed estimating
Everyone is consciously participating through
remaining estimates

60. This is Simon,
our CNC-Operator
Load-balancing CNC-Machine

61. …he likes to know
the roads head.

62. Everyone can
create CNC-
Tickets? Yes! In
planned state.
Todo
Planned
Ready for Review
Done

63. Simon checks the planned
Issues estimates.
Todo
Planned
Ready for Review
Done

64. ….and transitions
Issues to Todo as
they are ready to
go
Todo
Planned
Ready for Review
Done

65. Simon knows his backlog and capacity
by checking the aggregates…
Todo
Planned
Ready for Review
Done

66. …he adjusts his shifts or outsources jobs.
Todo
Planned
Ready for Review
Done

67. Simon knows what is
ahead of him….Simon
is happy.

68. Throughput
Know the capacity
Upcoming
Know the backlog
Staffing
Add night shifts - if needed ;-)
Load-balancing CNC-Machine

69. Less
Noise

70. Include JIRA data
Up-to-date project information, order states,
remaining estimates via gadgets
Comments with history
In-line, in-document comments and
conversations
Templates in Confluence
Neatly designed - ready to use it in crunch times
In-context
communication
via Confluence

71. External Space
Give the client access to the latest drawings,
wireframes and block diagrams
Vivid communication
Between the actual co-worker and the client in the
drawing context.
Example:
Drawing
approval with
client No (Drop)box
Collaboration instead of just sharing….

72. External space
Multi-Stakeholder
We pull stakeholders in the loop
by @-mention
Comment Drawings
Painless without special skills.
Approvals
We document approvals here in place.

73. Conclusion

74. We solved
some huge
problems...
Workflow-thinking
Reliable guidance for most standard tasks while
increasing data quality
Information architecture
For high throughput while reducing signal-to-
noise ratio
Management by information
Better team and better results by information-
conscious managing

75. Call to action
1. Find opportunities for
improvement
2.Map your workflow to your
existing process
3.Get rid of excess noise

76. STEPHAN SPENLING | ARCHIMEDES EXHIBITIONS | SPS@AMDX.DE
Thank you!