Dream Beyond

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’ve been with Gulf Coast Claims Service for six years. We’re an independent adjusting firm for property-casualty claims in the US. The company was formed in 1963, and it’s family-owned and operated.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Dream Beyond?

We developed our software program more than 20 years ago. The person who developed it for us moved on, so we needed to find someone else to support the program.

In the last year, we decided to upgrade it and do something new with it. The solution was server-based, so we could only use it in the office.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Dream Beyond has created a web-based platform for us. It has eliminated the need for our employees to be in the office to log into the software, and we’re able to access all programs and reports in the system. They’ve built it from the ground up with all our requirements.

Our claims get entered into the claims management system, then imported into the software. All the financial data go into the program — any payments that we issue for claims, insureds, claimants, attorneys, appraisers, and so on. At the end of the month, we have a monthly report, which we rate and send off to our clients in London.

What is the team composition?

The main people are the owner and his wife. Their team is involved in the development, and about 6–10 people are working on our program.

How did you come to work with Dream Beyond?

Another developer was helping us, but he couldn’t support us entirely because he was moving to another field. He recommended Dream Beyond to us — that’s how we learned about them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve probably spent over $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

They’ve been with us for over ten years; we started working together in 2011.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

The report-making mechanism within the system is crucial to our company — without it, we wouldn’t be able to be in business. We handle over 150 accounts, and clients fund each of these accounts with a certain amount of money to make payments to insureds and deployments. Over the month, we make the payments and record them in the system, which appears in the report. Overall, the results have been phenomenal.

How did Dream Beyond perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re very efficient. When we started the project, we had daily meetings every morning at 10:30 a.m. with the entire team to check on progress and go over the previous day and the next day. Moreover, they’ve been scheduled, organized, and on top of everything. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re attentive, and we’re able to speak with them in a timely fashion. Other providers use support tickets, and then they don’t answer for 1–2 days, but Dream Beyond always has a quick turnaround for any issue or service of any kind.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t know; that’s a hard one. We’ve been very pleased with their work.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be explicit and give details about what you’re trying to accomplish with your project. Also, stay focused on what you need so they can produce that for you.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of Mahad Al-Zahra. We’re a theological school located in Houston, Texas. Our students memorize the Quran and study other theological and secular studies.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Dream Beyond?

We were looking for someone to help us with custom software development.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Dream Beyond has created an entire software solution for us, including the administrative panel where we register and admit the students and the reports for everyone at the end of the year. Overall, we’re able to input all of the academic progress data into the system in a one-step solution. They’ve created a pretty comprehensive system using .NET.

What is the team composition?

We’ve mainly worked with the CEO. We gave him the requirements, and he had his team to delegate the work.

How did you come to work with Dream Beyond?

My friends recommended Dream Beyond. They’d previously worked on projects with them.

How much have you invested in them?

We’ve spent approximately $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with them in 2015, and our relationship is ongoing. They currently maintain the software for us.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

They’ve thoroughly understood our requirements. Moreover, the team has followed our requirements and delivered exactly what we wanted.

How did Dream Beyond perform from a project management standpoint?

They stick to timelines and budgets decently. We’ve worked with Excel, and we communicate through phone calls and email.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have a core development team, and the CEO is very experienced in particular. Whenever we give them our requirements, we know that he understands them to the best of his ability and that he’ll convert that into a user-friendly product. All in all, he’s very experienced in converting the requirements into a solid system.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything right now.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Try to have everything appropriately documented and ensure that any phone conversations and emails are consolidated into one document.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the President of an oil and gas service company, providing data and analysis critical for exploration and development of hydrocarbons. We have three locations in the United States

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

Historically, our three labs have been very autonomous and didn't require much, if any, integration. As technology has improved and our clients needs changed, we found ourselves having to align output from all three labs into a cohesive answer for our clients.

The challenge is that all three had established tools for managing their workload, all with positives and negatives, but none of which were alike. We needed a system that could align all three locations and integrate the work.

From previous experience, I wanted a system that was integral to performing the work so users would have to use it constantly day-in and day-out. I didn't want a system that had to be "kept up to date", but was more of a nuisance than a tool used to perform the work.

SOLUTION

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

I chose the founder, Ali Kitabi, after several discussions. I found Ali to be a rare breed, someone that can perform the coding work required, with an software architect approach to know how best to approach the problem, but most importantly is he got the big picture.

You could talk to him about what you wanted to do and then he could suggest approaches for how to tackle the problem, offering positives and drawbacks of the different approaches.

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

The project was to develop a customized laboratory information management system (LIMS) that was capable of tracking clients, contacts, projects, work orders within projects, and tasks within work orders. The goal was that employees could log in, see the work that needed to be performed, enter data into LIMS to be databased and delivered to clients, mark it as done so it could be reviewed and QA/QC'd prior to it being invoiced.

Integration was done with our financial software to automatically generate invoices for the work performed within LIMS. Steps included detailing the business requirements of lab technicians and managers from each of the three labs, the sales team, the accounting team, and executive management to see what data they wanted to see from LIMS.

Key deliverables were milestones throughout the project, broken into key stages generally corresponding to a group's role. The first attempt at LIMS had crashed and burned under a different provider, but we had attempted fewer, grander releases but we always fought getting parts finalized and user ready.

Ali's approach was to have far more, less grand releases but focus on delivering final code each time so the piece was complete and every release you were moving forward.

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

Due to our budget constraints, we just hired Ali, though for a period of time he managed one of our internal developers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I have a tendency to get excited about the final product and all that it can do, and can sometimes push for extra capability that takes longer to code and isn't what was required. Ali's emphasis on working toward the minimal viable product (MVP) resulted in a tool that was quickly in the end users hands and allowed them a say in ways in which it could be improved, not just my ideas.

It allowed us to get the project done on time and within budget.

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

Ali's strict adherence to the Agile approach was a welcomed change of pace. We had daily stand-ups and a strict two-week release cycle. Ali was always great about scoping each ticket and ensuring that activities within the Sprint were executed.

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

The most significant thing to me was that Ali always kept the business goal in mind. So many programmers hop directly into how they'll code the work that they don't remember why they're doing it or what 'success' will be to the end user.

Ali's solutions were always spot on, we never had any "misses" where he did work that failed to achieve the goal, and he often came up with very creative solutions that we hadn't thought of which either delivered that value we sought in a fast, efficient way, or added value we hadn't considered.

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

No, I was pleased.