The Munich-based channel HSE24 reaches over 44 million households with its TV programs. The station's creation production department develops extensive campaigns for the attractive program design, which are carried out by different teams with varying work processes.
The omnichannel retailer was looking for a tool to transparently map and control these tasks for order management and control of these teams. The solution from catworkx: the use of Jira Software.
HSE24 – Homeshopping
HSE24 is one of the leading addresses for modern and multimedia home shopping. In Germany, Austria and Switzerland, HSE24 presents itself with the channel brands HSE24, HSE24 Extra and HSE24 Trend. With its TV programs, HSE24 reaches 44 million households in the DACH region. In addition, the online store offers customers a 24-hour shopping experience for the entire product range. The innovative omnichannel retailer consistently links the interactive TV, online and mobile platforms and offers extensive applications for smartphones, smart TVs and tablets.
For the Creation department, HSE24 was looking for a requirements and management tool in which orders to the department and the associated resources, budgets and teams could be mapped transparently. The department comprises a total of nine teams working on different tasks. For example, the design team creates the layout of a campaign for a new brand, the text team creates the product descriptions and the set design team is responsible for the look and construction of the backdrops and props in the TV studio. The teams and their tasks, which can be interdependent depending on the project, are coordinated by the Content Project Managers (CPM). Katrin Hürter, Business Development Manager Creation, Design & Production, describes the initial situation in requirements management as follows: “The orders to the Creation department came to the teams in different ways: as a deadline, as an email or as a verbal request.” As a result, it was difficult to keep track of who was working on which project and which subcontracts a main order comprised.
As HSE24 was already using Jira Software from Atlassian in the IT department and rudimentarily in creation production, they considered using the classic task tracking tool for requirements management and process control in creation production as well. Together with catworkx, HSE24 developed the requirements and ideas for implementation in a workshop. “Among other things, it was important for us that the dependencies of the orders are mapped in the control tool. Some tasks can only be processed once certain preliminary work has been completed by another team,” explains Katrin Hürter. It should also be possible to automatically schedule subtasks and create standardized search queries for evaluation on the dashboards.
There were many constructive suggestions that we were able to implement together with catworkx.
For the implementation, catworkx developed prototypes for selected use cases (use cases), which were then tested for their suitability in the regular work process in the individual teams. With a customized version of Jira Software, it is now possible to assign all suborders to a main order.
If HSE24 launches a new brand (main task), this includes the creation of product photos, the design of a TV set in which the new product is presented or a campaign for the online shop. All these subcontracts, which can also be related to each other, are logically part of the main contract "brand launch". In addition, these suborders can be created automatically in Jira Software. It is also possible to design the workflows differently, because the editing and approval processes of the individual teams vary. In order to create the greatest possible acceptance for the use of the new tool, all employees of the creation department were trained internally in Jira.
“Jira Software is a very helpful tool for us in view of the increasing number of orders in creation production,” explains Katrin Hürter. “In contrast to other common workflow tools, Jira is characterized by the fact that it can be adapted to suit our individual requirements and processes in the teams. And: we can design it ourselves,” she emphasizes. The use of Jira Software provides better transparency of the creative processes, the status of which can be queried at any time on the Jira dashboards and boards by the responsible content project managers. The path from the idea for a product presentation to the go-live on TV or on HSE24's online channels is now clearly traceable.
The collaboration with catworkx during the introduction of Jira Software in Creation Production also went well in Ms. Hürter's opinion. “There were many constructive suggestions that we were able to implement together with catworkx,” she concludes. Looking to the future, HSE24 is considering expanding and optimizing the Jira application with additional apps.
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