Ingenious

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work for a university as an assistant professor in the area of physical therapy research.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Ingenious?

We were trying to develop a web app to help people after a total knee replacement surgery.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We developed some data science tools on the research end that we were interested in integrating into a web app — this is what people can use to understand their recovery after their knee surgery. Our particular challenge was taking all of the analytical work we had done, and operationalizing it in a way that could be used. This involves creating a UI and developing some infrastructure that could query the analytics that we developed, and then displaying the results for people.

Prior to working with Ingenious, we wanted to bring our academic research to clinicians and patients. However, we discovered early on in our process that it wasn’t possible, so we started looking for developers who could help us with this. Our goal wasn’t just to get information and analytics to people, but to get it to them in a way that could be used meaningfully.

The first phase was the academic work that we did, the second phase was to develop a prototype of what we were envisioning — which we can use to engage with our stakeholders continuously, to acquire feedback and criticism to make some iterative improvements on the web app. Moreover, they built a backend server to link up with our statistical analysis work on Ruby on Rails, and worked on the frontend using React JS.

We’re currently in a phase where we refine and improve upon the prototype, that we can ultimately launch into a larger study.

What is the team composition?

It evolved over time, but we work with one main contact who’s our project lead. We also work primarily with one of the senior program developers, but they also have other team members that we work with as well. I’d say the total number of people that we work with at Ingenious is a dozen, but we closely work with about six of them throughout the project.

There’s a project coordinator, a graphic designer, a number of programmers and software engineers, and their management team.

How did you come to work with Ingenious?

The CEO of their company gave a talk at the university I was working at and what they do just struck me. They view the software as a means to an end of changing and influencing behaviors in intentional ways, so that’s why we chose to engage with them.

Moreover, they were very easy to work with, and they were happy to meet with us and talk through the plan and processes. Their method of working, which is in sprints, has a series of deliverables that was very appealing to us. We knew that we were going to develop a prototype that needed to be refined, and it was exactly aligned with how they envision the work.

How much have you invested with them?

If I could give a range, our investment so far would be somewhere between $50,000–$100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing partnership started in October 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I have nothing but good things to say about working with Ingenious. There’s a layer of bureaucracy between me and their team that we have to navigate, and they’re always helping us make sure that my institution is getting the information they need to approve the work.

We’re constantly working within our team to test what they’re developing and put it in front of our stakeholders to have their feedback on it. I would say that we’ve had a lot of really critical and positive feedback, and achieved a lot of what we were hoping to achieve in terms of informing people of their recovery.

How did Ingenious perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management is excellent and transparent. We typically communicate through email, Slack, and Google Hangouts. Ingenious also uses Jira to organize some of the efforts going on in the project.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I would also say that they’re very goal-oriented and easy to work with not just in creating a web app, but to create a tool for people that can achieve the clinical outcomes we’re looking for.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Honestly, if there were any issues in the process, it would probably be more on our end than theirs. They spend time upfront on product design, fixing bugs, making small enhancements, and maintaining the project at probably no cost. I think it all comes back to them being goal-oriented and the work they do is a means to an end in achieving the goals.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I’m going to sound like a broken record, but it’s important to be equally goal-oriented with Ingenious. You’re not just hiring them for a service, you’re actually partnering with them to figure out your goals and what you’re going to achieve with the project. To be true partners in the work, you also have to give them the freedom to make suggestions to improve the development.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of product for a fertility platform.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Ingenious?

We wanted to build an electronic medical records system from scratch.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The application was built using Ruby on Rails for the backend and Ember.js on the frontend, with a MySQL database. It’s hosted on AWS. 

What is the team composition? 

We’ve worked with at least ten developers over the course of the engagement. However, we typically work with four. 

How did you come to work with Ingenious?

When I came onto the team, Ingenious had already been hired. 

How much have you invested with them?

[Confidential cost information].

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in June 2016, and our engagement is ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve been able to create a platform and bring on paying customers. Currently, there are about 60,000 patients in the database. The amount of data we’ve gathered is a clear sign of success. 

How did Ingenious perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re definitely one of the best teams I’ve worked with in terms of communication and approach to development. The team members are native-Spanish speakers, but their English is perfect. They’re reliable. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re able to find high-quality developers when we’ve needed to expand the tea. We’ve worked well together. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Like with anything, you need to keep reminding people of certain things and remain diligent about expectations. However, I don’t see any weaknesses with the team per se.