Case Study: Temona sees 40% improvement in issue documentation

Hear more from our customers and their experiences with Backlog here.

Industry: software development
Location: Japan
Employees: 47

Temona is a software development company specializing in marketing automation technology for e-Commerce businesses. Their two main services are Tamago Repeat, a mail-order automation system for increasing repeat business, and Hikiagel, a sales automation tool for personalizing web content based on a users history and interests.

Executive Summary

Temona needed a tool for managing outsourced development projects with their offshore development vendor Framgia Inc. in Vietnam. They tried other software, but it was difficult to use for non-technical team members. Communication difficulties resulted in issues falling through the cracks. They implemented Backlog for all projects and saw a 40% improvement in issue documentation and management.

Challenges

Before using Backlog, Temona was primarily depending on a tool called Redmine for their project management needs. Inputting and managing issues was complicated, so most technical team members failed to update it regularly, and non-technical members found it impossible to use. Consequently, their tool became a barrier to fluid collaboration.

Noriyuki Nakano, COO & CTO, Temona

With engineers frequently failing to document their work—either by never adding issues in the first place or by neglecting to update them as progress was made—Temona had limited transparency into what engineers were actually working on. And technical and non-technical teams were struggling to bridge the communication gap.

They needed a tool to open the doors of communication and collaboration, so both companies and all teams could see what was being worked on and where they needed to dedicate resources. And they needed a dedicated space for ongoing conversations, feedback, and questions.

How Backlog Helped

Even before starting to use Backlog with Framgia, Temona had been using Backlog for internal project management. They knew it was easy for everyone to use, great at tracking individual and group work, and adept at facilitating communication. They had been wanting to standardize the tools being used internally and externally, and with so many problems stemming from Redmine, Backlog became the obvious choice as the go-to project management tool for all projects.

“The biggest benefits of Backlog are that it can be operated easily by anyone and that you can grasp individual work status in detail.” —Noriyuki Nakano, COO & CTO

Now that everyone’s using Backlog, it’s easy for both companies to fully understand the status of every aspect of every project Framgia is contracted to work on. Each moving part is properly documented, updated, and attended to. Engineers easily update their work as they complete issues, and non-technical team members can see exactly what’s happening and provide feedback and direction along the way.

Left: Masaya Kisaki, Marketing Director, Framgia Inc.; Right: Noriyuki Nakano, COO & CTO, Temona

Results

Communication between engineers and the operational team has improved drastically, which makes working together not only easier but also more productive. The number of issues failing to be properly documented and managed has improved by about 40% compared to before Backlog.

“All of our work histories are documented in Backlog which overwhelmingly reduces the communication loss between the [Framgia] engineers and the members of our Japan team who control requirements. Those records are our heritage that we can refer to, like the backgrounds of projects and where we stumbled in the past and so on.” —Noriyuki Nakano, COO & CTO

Moreover, Backlog provides the data they need to measure individual productivity using the estimates and achievements documented in the program. Because every piece of work is now accounted for in Backlog, they can back up their decisions to increase budgets or add personnel with real-world data.

Framgia’s engineering team in Vietnam

This kind of tracking gives their team members an even greater incentive to properly use and document all their work since promotions and bonuses can now reflect the work seen in Backlog.