Kahoa

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m a business development lead for a Christmas lighting company called Brite Nites. Since 1993, we’ve installed lighting in commercial spaces as well as high-end residential homes. My role is to ensure that all of our processes run smoothly as we scale across the country.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire SolutionStream?

Three years ago, we hired an off-shore company to create a custom software and build a set of apps to help us streamline our processes. However, we weren’t satisfied with their work, so we approached SolutionStream to provide new designs for our apps.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to come up with a strategy to implement the apps with an August 2018 end date. Additionally, we needed a long-term plan for future development.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

I saw their billboard ad and reached out to them. Once we met with them, we felt that they knew how to handle projects like ours and appreciated their professionalism.

Can you go into detail about the services they provided and the scope of the project?

The project consisted of a four-day workshop, during which we brainstormed new ideas and strategies to improve the apps’ workflow. They collaborated with us to define our technical requirements and documented our discussions. Afterward, they developed the wireframes and delivered them within a week.

What was the team composition?

We worked with a designer, a wireframe developer, a project manager, and occasionally a technician. On our side, we provided two project managers and two additional overseas developers. We met with them for nine hours each day, and they were involved throughout the entire week.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

SolutionStream’s wireframes were exactly what we needed to grow our apps. We now understand that our current developers can’t complete the project as we’d hoped, so we’ll have to figure out where we need to go from here. In the end, their work has allowed us to consider drastic changes moving forward.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

We were impressed with the way they ran the meetings; it was a full think-take experience. Their project manager documented everything on a storyboard and used post-it notes to track our ideas. This ensured that we didn’t lose any ideas and could put all items into action.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Compared to previous vendors we’d worked with, SolutionStream was upfront with the whole process and did everything as expected. I appreciated their organization and enjoyed their brainstorming methods. They planned each day, and their developers moderated the workshop to keep everyone on track. The team understood our needs and helped us come up with ideas that we hadn’t considered before.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

The company focuses on educational software and instructional software for the military, which covers subjects from weapon systems to the computers that drive the computers on a submarine to heating and air conditioning systems on submarines. We have developed adaptive learning achievement tests. They are based on a technology that, based on the answers received to questions, can build a student profile and determine where their knowledge level is. We could thus cut down a 40-minute test to 20 minutes.

What is your position?

I have been working for 40 years in the management of educational software development. I spent the last nine years as the director of our first multimedia software development efforts. Starting in 2009, when portable devices started gaining popularity, I've worked exclusively in mobile development. I've had budget responsibilities of up to $100 million. Our mobile software development at Confidential Company ranges around $30 million.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with SolutionStream?

We began the scoping process and requirements gathering with business analysts who can deal with subject matter experts. We don't expect that someone writing a science lesson to be an expert in science, but he or she has to deal with someone who is. We let experts decide what our format requirements are and what would be most helpful for our effort. My main area of responsibility was the development and deployment of the software itself. We've had many problems in terms of hosting our mobile software and so on because the technology itself was completely new. By the time of my retirement, we had deployed 600,000 to 700,000 applications. We became quite adept at delivering a high-quality product on time.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

SolutionStream was a significant time saver in terms of bringing in talent to our company. What made them valuable to me as a hiring manager was the speed with which they could offer a qualified resume for an employee that could fit into the office environment and would be a good worker. Across the board, we hired more people through SolutionStream than we did through any other company.

Our working style was very much relaxed. We didn't have strict deadlines and daily accountability. Developers set their own deadlines through the agile process. We could go through the SolutionStream resumes more quickly, in general, because they more accurately reflected our requirements. We hired a number of developers on a contract basis, and it turned out that we did have opportunities for those people, so we ended up actually hiring them. Not hiring a developer was more to do with the lack of a long-term place for them than their individual abilities.

The team assigned by SolutionStream consisted of anywhere between two and four people on the low end, namely a couple of developers and a couple of QA [quality assurance] engineers, to probably 15 or more individuals dedicated to a single effort. After a while, we started dividing the work into skill sets. We took a different approach to the normal staffing process, and it actually worked out very well. The project was passed down the line and the people equipped to build a certain part would do it. It does take more time to communicate with more people, but having the right expertise behind a section of development was an advantage. If we have to deliver a product for the back-to-school deadline, missing it can cost any of our teams a lot of money. We have to test extensively and have the product prepared months several ahead of August when teachers come back.

How did you come to work with SolutionStream?

The vetting process is always the same, regardless of where the proposal came from. We had an established relationship with SolutionStream, and it didn't make sense to cut corners simply for the sake of expediency. Normally, our process consists of writing a job requisition, sending it to our HR department in Denver and distributing it to qualified vendors, out of which SolutionStream was one. I think that we did much more work with their company than our other offices did. Because of the volume of our work, the contract accurately reflected the conditions under which we were working. Before bringing someone in, their references would be screened by HR, and we'd meet with them at our office preferably. We'd also interview long-distance candidates via Skype. We had talks with at least two developers, and one manager in their team and used the same checklist in order to rate the same strengths and weaknesses. We'd also have them perform a programming exercise. We soon found out that people boasted qualifications, which they didn't have. Some of the candidates in general, not just from SolutionStream, were very adept at pulling the wool over our eyes during talks, but, when it came down to the coding part, they couldn't do it. At the end of the day, SolutionStream still had the most talented resources and the best approach.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

The annual cost of SolutionStream's services has been around $200,000 to $300,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We still use their services.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

Out of three development managers that we employed for software development, two of them started as contractors. They worked for us for almost two years before being brought in on a full-time basis. I soon made them development managers. This spoke very well to the quality of the developers brought to us by SolutionStream.

In terms of results, I can't attribute anything specifically to one developer or another. Everyone in our team had a good idea of what it was that we were developing. We'd always show people examples of what we were doing in order to make sure that they'd be up to the task.

As a general example, we had an employee that wanted to focus a lot more on 3-D animation for a project we were working on. This isn't always the most cost-effective approach to making educational software and that person didn't have a focus on making a reactive solution. He just wanted to develop the fun stuff. To his credit, he was very good at that type of work. He's since started his own company, but he wasn't the best fit for us at the time. The thing is, SolutionStream was always flexible with us during situations like that.

How did SolutionStream perform from a project management standpoint?

We collaborated through a suite of agile project management tools. We used Rally for a while and switched to a similar tool down the line. I've worked within the educational software development field for more than 30 years. I can definitely say that SolutionStream performed exceptionally.

What distinguishes SolutionStream from other providers?

I can only cite the basics. They delivered resumes to us as quickly as possible upon receiving requirements. Those resumes reflected our requirements very well. No matter how accurate we were in drafting those documents, we would still receive proposals that weren't even close to our needs from other vendors. We very much appreciated the fact that SolutionStream took the time to get us the right candidates, even if that meant delivering a day late. At the other extreme, there were times that I called them in need of a person at the very next day, without running the process through finance and other channels. I don't remember SolutionStream ever not delivering someone to us. They'd usually take a developer off of a different project in these cases. We developed a mutual trust, which can be rare in business.

Is there anything SolutionStream could have improved or done differently?

The one thing I can think of is that SolutionStream mistook our desire to take someone in quickly with our wanting to employ rock stars. We received a couple of resumes where the person in question hadn't been vetted well enough. We sat together with SolutionStream on some interviews at the end of which they apologized to us. This only happened a couple of times with them, whereas it would happen 50 percent of the time with other companies I worked with.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We oversee e-commerce and content solutions.

What is your position?

I am a senior manager within the IT [information technology] department.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with SolutionStream?

We needed resource augmentation for our internal tech department. We occasionally receive projects that exceed our capacity to complete them in a timely fashion, which leads to us needing additional team members for limited periods of time. The hard part is finding a well-qualified and reliable partner that can adapt to your workflows successfully and meet your standards of quality within a reasonable time frame.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

At any one given time, we use around five of SolutionStream's developers and quality assurance resources. They've done a superb job. One thing that I like about them is that they listened carefully to our needs, and they always manage to find a great resource for us. We interview candidates when they're brought on and usually tend to accept the first person proposed to us. This was not the case with some of our previous resource partners. During the last two years, there were only two resources that left unexpectedly in order to pursue something else. That kind of turnover isn't typical, so we were impressed.

How did you come to work with SolutionStream?

We needed certain skill sets as well as a cultural fit. We interviewed candidates on both of these criteria. SolutionStream was a very good fit. Their main headquarters is near our location, so we were familiar with their company. We were contacted by one of their founders, went to lunch with him and decided to try them.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

Some of the resources from SolutionStream are hired by other managers in our company. I don't have an exact figure.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in the fourth quarter of 2014.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

We track velocities. Like any other developer, they can lag behind on occasional sprints, but they generally catch up and perform well. The feedback for their work has been primarily positive and end users haven't discovered very many bugs, which is definitely impressive given the complexity of the work involved.

How did SolutionStream perform from a project management standpoint?

Our work is collaborative. Once we bring a partner on board, they become a part of the team, whether they're an employee or a contractor. We work in an agile environment. SolutionStream takes tickets the same as anyone else and is responsible for fulfilling our strict processes.

We also work through a resource augmentation model, not a project outsourcing one. We manage their developers directly in those cases. We use JIRA as the primary tool for delegating and managing tasks. We also use another Atlassian tool called Confluence for communication.

What distinguishes SolutionStream from other providers?

They listen to our needs and have a good vetting process for the resources that they bring to us. If I tell SolutionStream what I'm looking for, they will only bring me people who meet the criteria. For a number of other shops, I knew I'd have to go through six interviews before finding a capable person. 

Is there anything SolutionStream could have improved or done differently?

The only downside I have is that SolutionStream prefer to view their resources as long-term employees. We generally like to have the option of approaching certain developers in order to make them internal employees. There's a certain disconnect between their preferred model and ours.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We are a state agency providing IT services to other state and federal institutions.

What is your position?

I am a development supervisor.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with SolutionStream?

We were handling a multimillion dollar and multiyear conversion of a mainframe system to a .NET, web-based one for the federal government. Even though the contract would run for a number of years, it didn't make sense to hire state employees and be required to lay them off when the conversion was done. We ramped up our team using contract work. We've worked with SolutionStream on several other projects, but this is the most significant one.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

SolutionStream has worked on end-user economic information systems for us. They deal with complex, data-driven platforms. Development is usually done with .NET stack technologies. We use ASP.NET, C#, SQL server as well as a lot of Oracle technologies.

In general, the team provided by SolutionStream consists of one to four people. We interact with them directly. SolutionStream refers the applicants to us and we select the ones which we want. We have a limited number of staff which we can employ. We put out requests for a set number of developers with specific skillsets to all the contracting companies with which we work. We receive a pool of candidates from each company and pick the ones which we want.

We engage developers through a competitive bidding and interview process. At any time, our team may be comprised of contractors from five or six different companies.

How did you come to work with SolutionStream?

We went through a request for proposal process. We tend to evaluate individuals rather than companies. There are a number of open positions for which we receive applications from between 20-40 companies at a time.

We chose SolutionStream because, although the cost per hour for their staff tends to be a little higher than that of other companies, the quality and skill level of the people they refer to us tends to be very high.

What is the status of this engagement?

The work done by SolutionStream is still ongoing, but I'm no longer involved in that project.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

We've never had to release a developer from SolutionStream due to lack of skill or performance. Their contractors have always been of very high quality.

How did SolutionStream perform from a project management standpoint?

We've never had any delivery issues in regards to their work. We've used Jira, Redmine, ClearQuest, as well as other tools within our collaboration.

What distinguishes SolutionStream from other providers?

Within a huge stack of resumes, I put the ones coming from SolutionStream at the front of the pile primarily because, from my past experience with them, I've seen that their candidates have been vetted extremely well.