DevBranch

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am an executive at Anthill Inc.

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Website development.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire DevBranch to accomplish?

• Upgrade site from Drupal 7 to Drupal 8

SOLUTION

How did you find DevBranch?

trade show

Why did you select DevBranch over others?

Reputation for quality work.

How many teammates from DevBranch were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Upgrade old Drupal 7 site to Drupal 8 (and subsequently Drupal 9).

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

• Tasks completed.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Very responsive.

What was your primary form of communication with DevBranch?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

I was amazed at their quality work.

Are there any areas for improvement or something DevBranch could have done differently?

More detailed estimates. Some estimates were too broad and not useful.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Our company aims to amplify the impact of mission-driven organizations through transformational digital solutions. I am the deputy of a engineering department of roughly 40 software engineers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire DevBranch, and what were your goals?

We hired Dev Branch to perform php development for two large Drupal projects. After working collaboratively with Dev Branch not only did we bring them on in their engineering capacity we also let them work directly with our project managers to technically lead a project. The goal on one project was to migrate a Drupal 7 project to Drupal 9 with some additional features. On another project we had a very tight timeline to create an entirely new experience for a large non-profit. They were able to effectively integrate with complicated third-party APIs and other technically challenging features.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

A primary stakeholder from Dev Branch reached out to me proactively via email. Having the business need I did due diligence to investigate the firm and found that they had a very robust portfolio on Drupal.org and consequently started a conversation with them. After an initial discussion I felt confident in their abilities and we moved forward with a statement of work.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

They entered the project after most designs and UI/UX were completed. We went over the features together to discuss high level product needs then collaboratively decided on technical approach. I groomed out actionable tickets and assigned them to the senior person on their team to disseminate to their team asynchronously. It was great to be able to 'walk in the door' each day and have a good amount of engineering completed since they're typical working hours end around when our working hours begin.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

Three. There was a senior / architect level engineer, a mid-level engineer and a junior engineer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

The clients have been very pleased with thew new design and features. From the start our company team members were thrilled with the candor and throughput of their work.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

We utilized a variety of tools including Jira, Slack and GitHub to effectuate the engineering needs of the project. The Dev Branch team and I met three times a week for stand ups in addition to a weekly sprint grooming call.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

I appreciated their ability to jump in ramp-up and be effective quickly. It was great to hear them mention that they would love more technically complicated challenges, even though in our perception we were giving them some pretty challenging technical requirements.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Nothing at this time.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Tech lead

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire DevBranch, and what were your goals?

For one of our clients, we've been a drupal platform for a performance-critical, large-scale deployment.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

DevBranch provided a convincing initial screening of the requirement and provided matching resources for suggested participation.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

We worked with DevBranch through an initial assessment, and close discussion about the technical approach and included them in our internal scrum workflows succesfully.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We worked with about 6 people:

• architects
• project managers
• procurement
• web devs

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

DevBranch contributed to building a well-performing large-scale platform.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

Good english skills, close communication and timeliness. Communications through Teams and Jira.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Very capable Drupal-centric developers.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Mentoring for junior resources did not work out as efficiently as expected.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Marketing and website development company. I am the CEO

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire DevBranch?

Specialised Drupal platform support and updates

What were your goals for this project?

To successfully support and maintain a complex Drupal platform

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Was selected after digital interview of their expertise and overall satisfaction rating

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Provided drupal development and support services to the client's platform

What was the team composition?

Three to four team members were required to plan; communicate and execute the needed services

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

Has been a big learning curve with new technologies and the reward of successfully completing our support contract

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Project management was executed via Trello and worked great to plan, schedule and execute tasks

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I valued their expertise and knowledge.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Not really.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Our agency is a full-service digital agency operating in Toronto, Canada with specialization in Drupal development. I am the owner of the agency.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire this vendor?

We hired them for various development services for frontend Drupal and JavaScript.

What were your goals for this project?

We were looking for high-quality code, team collaboration, and creative solutioning.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We met the vendor at DrupalCon.

Describe the project in detail.

There have been various projects, but, overall, each project is Drupal-focused or React/JavaScript-focused. The clients have been enterprise and/or highly visible organizations.

What was the team composition?

The team consists of front- and backend developers, project managers, QA testers, DevOps specialists, and a Scrum Master.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact this project has had on your business?

We are always on the lookout for high-quality development talent to facilitate our ambitious goals for quality, accountability, and growth.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

DevBranch resources operate like full-time employees. They fully integrate with our existing workflows and systems. We utilize Jira, Git, Jenkins, Pantheon, Acquia Cloud and various other tools.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I’m most impressed with their responsiveness and dedication to Drupal.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Availability of additional resources has been challenging.