When the engineering team at Basecamp Labs (a 35-person product studio) decided to consolidate their tooling, they were running on four separate platforms: Jira for issue tracking, Notion for project docs, Slack for updates, and GitHub Projects for roadmaps.
"We had four sources of truth, and none of them agreed with each other," said their VP of Engineering, Marcus Osei. "Every Monday standup started with someone asking which board we were supposed to be looking at."
The Search for a Single System
Basecamp Labs wanted one tool that could handle the full lifecycle of engineering work — from incoming bug reports to shipped features — without losing the depth they needed for complex projects.
They evaluated five tools. Lumos stood out for three reasons:
- Speed. The interface felt instant compared to everything else they tried.
- GitHub integration. Issues, PRs, and commits linked automatically. No manual connecting.
- Cycles. Their previous sprint tooling was painful. Lumos's cycle planning felt like it was designed by people who actually ship software.
The Migration
The team migrated over a weekend. Lumos's import tool pulled in 4,200 Jira issues with labels, assignees, priorities, and comments intact. "We were nervous it would be a mess," said Marcus. "It took three hours. I expected three days."
The first two weeks were an adjustment. Teams had to unlearn the habit of updating four places at once. But within a month, the behaviour had settled: Lumos first, everything else synced automatically.
The Results — One Quarter Later
After 12 weeks on Lumos, the team did their own analysis:
- 40% faster issue resolution — measured from open to close
- Sprint completion rate up from 61% to 84% — driven by better cycle planning and carryover tracking
- Engineering manager 1:1 prep time cut in half — velocity reports and cycle insights gave managers data they previously had to compile manually
- Zero tooling meetings in the last six weeks — the previous cadence was monthly discussions about which tool was the "real" source of truth
"The biggest change isn't in the metrics," Marcus said. "It's that the engineers actually update their issues now. When the tool is fast and the workflow makes sense, people use it."
What Lumos Would Improve (Their Words)
We always ask customers what we should build next. Basecamp Labs' list:
- Better bulk editing for large backlogs
- More granular notification controls per-project
- Improved Figma linking for design-engineering handoffs
All three are on our roadmap. We'll be sharing updates in the coming cycles.
If you're thinking about migrating from Jira, Asana, or Linear to Lumos, our customer success team offers a free migration consultation. Book a call →
