Objective Group Inc - OGI

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a former senior project manager for a global software development company called Liferay.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Objective Group Inc - OGI?

We hired Objective Group Inc to provide staff augmentation services and help us with an Agile implementation. We wanted to ensure that our organization followed best practices.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Objective Group Inc has provided staff augmentation services to support one of our software products. They’ve identified developers and project managers to help us implement an Agile software project delivery framework. The product is built on the Google Cloud Platform and enables users to build and deploy customizable portals online.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with four team members from Objective Group Inc, including a senior project manager and developers.

How did you come to work with Objective Group Inc - OGI?

I wasn’t involved in the hiring process, but I know they’ve been a long-term partner of ours. 

What is the status of this engagement?

I joined the organization in April 2021, and Objective Group Inc was already helping us. The partnership is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I’ve had the opportunity to see Objective Group Inc’s guidelines and recommendations have benefitted our team and facilitated progress. Since working with them, we’ve experienced an improvement in overall performance, motivation, and satisfaction.

As a fast-paced software development organization, the fact that we’ve maintained a relationship with them for two years indicates the quality of their services. 

How did Objective Group Inc - OGI perform from a project management standpoint?

Objective Group Inc has become a part of our team. They deliver work on time, and we meet with them daily. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Objective Group Inc is concerned with delivering high-quality work. They’re an honest, professional partner who is invested in the team's overall success rather than their individual success. They’ve orchestrated a collaborative approach within an Agile environment, which has made for a successful engagement. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Everyone has room for improvement. While tour teams work well together, Objective Group Inc could improve the level of communication across the management team.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Explain your requirements and listen to their expertise. They come at a cost, but they provide good services and bring great people to the table. I recommend hiring them.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the head of IT of a health and wellbeing website. This website is the largest in Brasil and has over 1.5 million daily visits.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Objective Group Inc - OGI, and what were your goals?

Create a web platform for people to schedule medical appointments. Objective provided technical staff for developing the application.

SOLUTION

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

Objective was already working for the company that own's our company, so it was suggested by them.

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

The developers from Objective worked on a node expressapi, and a frontend written in React. The backend has multiple information sources. We also hired a QA, that checks all the work done, and creates automated tests using Cypress.

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

Three. A backend developers, a frontend developer and a QA.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The project was to have its first main release in 3 to 4 months, and it was completed in that time. Went online with no bugs, with unit tests and clean code. It was a success according to other development teams on the company as well as the management board.

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

We use Jira and slack, this is a company standard rather than a proposal from Objective, but they were fast to adapt (they use the same on other projects). Project management is done using the Agile theories namely: scrum.

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

All the people from Objective were fast to adapt to the working style. People's behaviour is no different from that expected from company employees, with a significant higher professionalism.

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

As far as equipment goes, I think people should be better equipped, the QA was working for us for the first three weeks with a slow laptop, he then got a new one. Also the frontend developer, doesn't have access to an iphone so he can test stuff he does. It would be awesome to have these issues covered.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am a practice manager for a software development company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Objective Group Inc - OGI?

We needed staff to help augment our teams and bring in technical expertise.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Objective Group is providing experts in technical fields to augment our teams. These are people that have experience in project management, as well as front- and backend experience. We rely on them to give us on-the-spot resources to meet our needs.

The other area they help us is with our software development lifecycle (SDLC). They’ve been working to help us define a process that works for our people, which is a combination of Scrum and the Kanban agile process. 

They showed us packages, tools, scripts, and sheets that they use themselves, and they customized those based on our needs. They provide software assistance that is adjusted for us, and they coach our team members on how to use it effectively. They also provide us with a lot of DevOps expertise to help keep the tools up and running. 

The engagement has continuously grown and adjusted over the years, and they are embedded in many of our projects. 

What is the team composition?

We work with 20–30 developers, but it changes based on the level of support and skillsets that we need. Close to 25% of my projects are staffed by Objective Group team members, but the number can go up to 100% depending on the project. 

We have one project manager, a tech lead, front- and backend consultants, as well as DevOps that spread out across the different teams. 

We have one main point of contact who helps us arrange our resources and delivers some of the projects. 

How did you come to work with Objective Group Inc - OGI?

When I joined the organization, we already had an engagement in place with Objective Group. My understanding is that they were recommended to us through a referral. We were looking for people who were quick to learn our platform and the tools associated with it. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $1 million–$5 million so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with them in June 2016, and it is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The measurements that we look at are that the project is successful, and they are delivering on our expectations. They are doing both of these things. 

From a qualitative perspective, the lifecycle process they’ve helped us to develop is very robust, and we continue to use it to estimate work and outline execution on projects. They put together the original process and tools over five years ago, and we still use them, so we consider this an indication that the partnership is successful. 

Quantitatively, we determine success from whether a project is completed, and if the resources were delivered within the number of billable hours we expect. Objective Group consistently delivers everything within the amount of time that is expected. There has never been a time that we’ve had to ask them to finish anything, and they complete the project from start to finish every time. 

We’ve been working with some of the people from Objective Group for the last 4–5 years, and they have been absolutely top-notch. Almost every candidate we’ve gotten from Objective Group has been exactly what they were described as, and has been able to jump into projects right away. 

How did Objective Group Inc - OGI perform from a project management standpoint?

We closely track projects and engagement managers from Objective Group, and we see the same performance that we expect to see from our own project managers. They give us strong teams and excellent project management. We are primarily in touch with the services manager in the US, and we discuss resources and allocation.

We primarily use Jira as well as an in-house Kanban board that was built by Objective Group. Communication styles depend on the person that we are working with, but our primary forms of communication are Zoom and Slack. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

The biggest thing that we see that makes Objective Group special is that the people we get from them are vetted, trained, and by the time they join our project, they are ready to get started. They do some shadowing work to make sure that they do things the way we expect, but we rarely have any issues where consultants are not ready or not at the level they were promised.

We have worked with other vendors who have sent us people who were unqualified for certain jobs, and we have never had that issue with Objective Group. 

They provide high-quality people for a really great cost. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

They are running into the same challenge that every organization is, which is retaining talented people, but that is the only downside that we see. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

As with any vendor, make sure that you are getting the right people for each task. However, we haven’t had any issues with Objective Group providing the right people, so we are confident that they won’t have any issues with other companies.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a Senior Solution Engineer in the professional services group for an open source software company. We have presence in over 25 countries.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Objective Group Inc - OGI, and what were your goals?

Project management is hard. Agile project management is even harder. Scrum wasn't cutting it for our project teams, not necessarily around delivery, but moreso on the overview and management side. With Scrum, visibility into progress of a sprint is an opaque and tedious exercise, that detracts from the teams' focus. The pressure as a professional services team, to not just deliver a quality product, but to do so while providing sufficient weekly burndowns and accurate progress is non-existent in traditional Scrum, those reports either don't exist or are delayed until after the fact.

SOLUTION

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

I was not part of vendor selection.

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

I was not part of defining the scope of work.

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

At least 20+ developers and 2 project managers over the course of the last 5 years.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Objective helped apply the discipline of a software development lifecycle methodolgy to my department, and was able to bring that to life with the Sinccera tool. All our global project teams successfully and consistently deliver projects using the Sinccera tool and SDLC methodology taught by Objective.

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

Project management style varied over the years based on the individual project managers. Because the team is mostly in Brazil, communication can sometimes be disjointed as well as time differences. Objective went to great lengths to bridge those gaps successfully. Tools used were, email, Slack, Skype, Meets, Jira, and the Taskboard/Sinccera.

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

Our access to the team was very open and welcome. The project methodology they teach and the Sinccera tool they sell are all used by internal staff. They're great at dogfooding.

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

Communication and documentation could be improved, but that's a minor critique.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm responsible for IT governance at an automotive company. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Objective Group Inc - OGI?

for two main reasons 1- Agile transformation - we were with bad throughput in ours IT Teams and we had to improve it and implement agile methods as a group strategy. 2- an APP development

SOLUTION

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

we were to the market to find the best consultants to help us in the goals. The main factor to decide for Objective was when we saw that they were not just an agile consulting company but also software developers and use the experience of agile consultants in their own needs, and vice versa. So they can see the results inside the company and if this bring value, sell the service.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

we devided the Agile project in three phases:

• assessment
• trainning
• implementation

in the assessment phase we had many interviews between the Objective consultant and IT and Business and received in the end a report with the analisys and the potencials to improve. in the trainning phase we contrated sessions of trainning with the focus in Agile culture, in the implementation phase we had a senior consultant inside the teams to improve the changes and we did it with all ours IT Teams.

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

in the Agile iniciative we had 1 senior consultant in the app development a direct contact to 1 project manager, 1 senior Tech lead, 1 senior software architect.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

what I can share is that we achieved more than our goals

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Easy to talk and communicate. The commitment of the team and openness to change when necessary to achieve success were great.

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

the customer driven and focus to delivery

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

None. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the VP of software engineering at EBANX. Our platform connects millions of Latin-Americans to international businesses through a cross-border payments solution.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Objective Group Inc - OGI?

To expand our payment gateway integration across several markets with new and existing partners; including the full lifecycle of the project from system api integrations through back-office solutions and user experience.

SOLUTION

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

We have other partners that also help us with similar initiatives but the technical expertise, accountability and management experience from Objective's team sets a high bar on our benchmark.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

We have over 25 engineers from Objective working with us on three different internal engineering teams, they are constantly involved with our key deliveries and with new products we are constantly launching to market.

Describe the recruitment process in detail.

We outline the general expertise needed and conduct interviews with the employees Objective selects for us. After that they conduct an internal training and ramp-up the new engineer into our team, always keeping a close eye on performance, quality and adaptation.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the engagement that demonstrate progress or success?

With their collaboration we were able to integrate over 50 new payment partners over the last two years. Furthermore, the collaboration with Objective was key for us to make our platform more extensible for integration new international payment methods.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The developers work as if they were part of the team, participating in all rituals and contributing new code, as well as reviewing code of internal EBANX's engineers. Objective also has an HQ here in Curitiba, Brazil, and promote frequent, productive in-person team gatherings.

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

Their focus on quality and technical experience, alongside their commitment to partner with us, giving a sense that they are genuinely a part of our team ❤️

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

There were some minor bumps around the way they reported their monthly bills and some isolated cases of sub-par team-member productivity. Really normal for a project of this magnitude, and Objetive always helped us figuring things out and greatly expedited the solution process.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the former CTO of Liferay Cloud, an Enterprise Java company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Objective Group Inc - OGI?

We had to modernize our business, product, and the way we worked with software. I had a small team back then, so we needed help. Although I had been a full-time engineer and led teams for many years, I didn’t have experience scaling a team and creating processes, so we hired OGI.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

OGI guided us in creating software development lifecycle processes for my team. This process included how to operate daily, coordinate projects, and work across teams. They also helped us manage upstream and downstream conversations about features we wanted to build. They trained my team and me on these processes. 

Additionally, OGI provided contactors. During our engagement, 40% of our team came from them and were injected into my team. We ran under OGI’s guidance to execute the modernization project. They also provided a process for data analysis and team performance so that we could predict our goals better. 

What is the team composition?

Ramon (Head of US Operations & CIO) led the decision-making. I worked with managers, product managers, project managers, and engineers from OGI. 

How did you come to work with Objective Group Inc - OGI?

I used to work with OGI in Latin America with our consulting software branch, where we were allocating developers from their team to help us. When I moved to California, I contacted Ramon to put a team together to help me with the processes. 

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $3 million–$5 million a year.

What is the status of this engagement?

I worked with them from January 2016–September 2022. Although I left the company, I believe they still have a relationship with OGI.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

OGI made a big difference in us achieving our results and delivering what we had planned. Predictability of execution in software development was one of our metrics. They helped us create models where we could predict the team's performance and plan our deadlines and goals better. 

The product development process they created was very nice because they included documentation from upstream — conversations between designers and product leaders — to downstream, which involves the engineers. This documentation provided us with a way to trace back information across layers of conversations, which was helpful for our leadership and executive team. I learned this process from them and still use it nowadays. 

How did Objective Group Inc - OGI perform from a project management standpoint?

They were great at project management — it was one of their areas of expertise. I had a great experience with the project manager; they were very senior and knew exactly what they were doing. Moreover, they had great leadership skills and could work independently, including leading teams, running meetings, collecting data, and following up with roadmaps. 

They were very responsive and flexible in adjusting the team and using different technologies. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

OGI cares about quality employees. They make the people they allocated to our project feel like part of our company while at the same time making them feel part of their internal team. Due to this approach, they provided consistently good professionals, from project managers to engineers, which I hadn't seen with any other contractor. I've worked with many contractors that don't work well because the quality isn't good. Meanwhile, OGI doesn't hire quantity over quality; they coach and train their people.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I didn't have any criticism for the way they operated. However, we noticed that the relationship between OGI employees and the company they were serving was so deep that sometimes these employees wanted to stay at the company. OGI didn't have a process to reallocate resources, and I wished they had a model in which the client could absorb some resources, which some contractors have.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you want more statistical data and a better understanding of your product, go with OGI. They've developed their process over 15–20 years, and it works. Moreover, it's not intrusive or overwhelming. I would also recommend OGI if you're scaling your organization and goals because they know what they're doing. I always recommend them and will use them in my startup company — I trust their team.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the COO for a company that builds software to help small businesses with their tax credits. We’re a subsidiary of a larger organization that offers HR software to small and medium-sized businesses.  

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Objective Group Inc – OGI?

Specifically, we were looking to build a system where we can enrich data about our customers from third-party data sources (like LinkedIn) to help with additional data mining. Additionally, we were looking for help with improving our engineering processes to better estimate our deliveries.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

On the engineering side, we were mostly in discovery mode, so we met with them to discuss our classes and what improvements we can make. Additionally, they helped us put together a system to monitor our processes over time: what metrics do we capture, how do we apply statistical modeling to these metrics to produce predictability, what tools do we need to provide to our engineering team to create a solid estimate.

The tools for this project were a set of custom-built Jira plugins and attachments. They also built a tool internally that delivered some of these capabilities. On the data science side, they worked with Java and Python to build out a system to ingest data from public sources and apply a set of natural language processing algorithms to that data.

We worked together on a set of requirements so that they understood what they were trying to accomplish.

What is the team composition?

We primarily work with three people: their CEO and then two individual project heads. There are other developers working in the background, but my interactions are primarily with these three principals.

How did you come to work with Objective Group Inc – OGI?

They worked with me at my previous company to build a similar platform for our engineering processes. They also built another service product that required cloud hosting.

How much have you invested with them?

Across all my different roles, it’s around $5 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since May 2017.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

On the business process side, we were able to triple our global service delivery ability. Our business was worth around $4 million, and now it’s worth around $12 million.

How did Objective Group Inc – OGI perform from a project management standpoint?

From a communication perspective, they’re very good. We’ve always had clear communication around expected delivery timelines. If there are any changes to the scope, they’re very clear about what they’ll be able to do to stick to our initial delivery estimate.

A lot of our project tracking is done in Jira. They also have an internal tool to track budget divergence.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The most important aspect of our work is that we have a partner relationship, rather than a vendor relationship. We are able to communicate with them about everything, including any challenges we have, and then Objective stands up to help us with those challenges. They provide us with suggestions about what kind of solutions would work best for our business.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything we could have changed.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be clear about your goals when stepping into this relationship. I’ve seen a lot of folks change their minds two weeks into a project about what they want to build, and it’s alright to do so, but keep in mind that it will affect your cost and timeline.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the senior VP of engineering for an intelligent transport system (ITS) technology company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Objective Group Inc - OGI?

We needed additional help with custom software development.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Objective Group Inc - OGI has augmented our software development capacities. They provide a team of developers to help us build and implement new features and functions in our software products. They specialize in web and C# development but also use JavaScript, Angular, and SQL server. 

What is the team composition?

We have a team of developers. 

How did you come to work with Objective Group Inc - OGI?

We started doing business in South America, specifically Brazil. We needed to modify our products for their market, so we looked for a company headquartered in Brazil to help us. We found them on Clutch.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2020, and our relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We measure their success with the same metrics we use for our other development teams. They build out the software on a quarterly basis, so we set goals for the quarter. The team has to reach that goal and deliver quality products. We see how many bugs escape into the field.

How did Objective Group Inc - OGI perform from a project management standpoint?

They meet the deadlines. Sometimes we ask them to accelerate some development items, and they always meet the request. Communication varies based on the individual. All the developers are in Brazil, but they all communicate in English. Some of them speak very well; others don’t. However, they provide a team lead as the central point of communication, and they’ve done an excellent job.

We have a daily stand-up with the development team through a video chat. The rest of the communication is through Teams, emails, or our ticketing system.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have an excellent team of developers. They’re all skilled and knowledgeable; they fit well into our development style and deliver good results.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there’s nothing I’d have them improve.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Run the same style you use with your internal team. Don’t treat them like an external development company.