Reflexions

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a fantasy-sports technology company developing Internet-based games. Our users are able to register and play fantasy sports contests against each other. Contests can be free or have entry fees with payouts at the end. I am the director of products for the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Reflexions?

We needed to develop a particular project, but and didn't have sufficient internal engineering resources to deliver it within our specified timeline. We decided to look into the option of outsourcing the work since it didn't make sense to hire permanent staff for this one scenario. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Reflexions developed e-commerce functionality allowing users to buy products using cash and points earned on our site. The system was written using PHP and runs in an AWS [Amazon Web Services] Elastic Beanstalk environment. I have worked closely with Reflexions' business team and their engineers in order to refine the specs, assign deadlines, and have incremental deliveries.

How did you come to work with Reflexions?

I have worked with Reflexions on a number of personal projects before engaging with them for my company. We met with a couple of other similar development shops, described our project, got some proposals. In the end, we decided to engage Reflexions. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Reflexions a year and a half ago. After our project was delivered, we continued to work with Reflexions on additional ad-hoc tasks. They became our trusted dev shop for work which we couldn't source internally.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

I was extremely pleased with the quality of the work and communication. Our product worked well and was delivered on time. The feature has been a successful revenue-driving addition to our site. It has worked for a long time without requiring maintenance. It was built exactly to our specs. We were very pleased with the work and have continued to hire Reflexions for future projects.

How did Reflexions perform from a project management standpoint?

I can't think of an instance when the timeline was slipped. Plus, our budgeting has always been upfront. Reflexions never made unexpected charges. Reflexions' project manager acted as our main point of contact. I also interfaced with one of their senior engineers when more technology-centric questions came up. That person was very knowledgeable and easy to communicate with. From time to time, I spoke with individual engineers on our project for bug reports or small questions about our features. Because we were forming a new partnership, I also interfaced with Reflexions' business people. They have a custom internal web application which is used as a ticketing tool and for bug reports. We can use it to start tickets and ask questions.

What did you find most impressive about Reflexions?

Reflexions has an all-in type of engagement. They have qualified and competent engineers, but they can also be leveraged for assistance on the product side. They can provide opinions on any changes that the client would want to make to a spec. Reflexions also offers strategic services, although I haven't used them for this purpose.

Are there any areas Reflexions could improve?

I have no negatives about Reflexions. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I was the former director of digital strategy and production at DDB, one of the world's leading advertising agencies. It runs global campaigns for companies like State Farm Insurance, Electrolux, The New York Lottery and Johnson & Johnson. We also work with a variety of pharmaceutical companies like Mark and Pfizer.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Reflexions?

We were working with The New York Lottery. They have a very complex system involving hardware at local stores that are wired directly to the headquarters. These kiosks had no streamlined reporting capabilities at that time, so the only way of getting sales information was by printing them out on the same thin strips of paper which were used for the tickets. This resulted in long, 12-foot rolls filled with raw data. The information used to be stored on 30-year-old mainframes located in Schenectady, New York. None of this data had ever been exposed to the Internet or presented in a user-friendly format. We were tasked with changed that. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Reflexions architected and designed a reporting dashboard in collaboration with my team. It allowed any individual vendor to log in and get a report of the products they currently had on hand. Vendors are also able to see weekly and yearly sales. It allowed us to anonymously aggregate information and compare sellers in different parts of New York, broken down by venue type. Pizza shops could compare their ticket sales to other pizza shops, giving them a good sense of how they were doing compared to peers. The platform also had a dynamic engine for building marketing materials. If a vendor decided that they needed new signs for a new game, they could do this through assets stored in the system. They could download vector-based files which could be sent to the local printer. The project took 16-20 weeks to complete.

I hired Reflexions again for a large consumer and corporate-facing website. The site was for a giant pharmaceutical company specializing in generics. We also worked on 3 to 4 national campaigns for State Farm Insurance, one of which involved a dynamic map showing real-time US sales information. Reflexions also built an online campaign for State Farm, allowing individuals to nominate local altruistic organizations for a sponsorship. Reflexions also took part in a large consulting engagement for the US Tennis Association, which needed to overhaul its entire technology infrastructure. We worked collaboratively on creating a roadmap for the next 2 to 3 years, consolidating all data around tennis players and organizations in the US. We found different ways of exposing that data to various users such as coaches, clubs, and players of all levels. We needed to do this through web and mobile applications as well as desktop consoles.

I don't know what the size of their team was. I mainly spoke with the company's principals and only interacted with individual developers when necessary. Reflexions delivered completely on time and within budget so they became my go-to shop.

How did you come to work with Reflexions?

We had a bid for a fairly large project for The New York Lottery, which is a government-run organization requiring bids from a minimum of 5–7 companies. We only had 3, so we started Googling for developers in the tri-state area. We ended up getting around 12 bids, 3–4 of them distinguishing themselves in the proposal process. Reflexions proved to be the smartest and the best option. Compared to all others, Reflexions wasn't the most expensive of the group. They had a neutral reputation and the required technical abilities. It was a risk, considering that I'd worked with the other companies in the past, but Reflexions gave me an incredible amount of confidence about their understanding of the project.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Reflexions in 2010 and the collaboration ran until I left the company in 2015. I wish I could hire Reflexions again, but I don't have any projects for them at my current business.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

Our State Farm work was as big and as visible as a project could get. It was a very popular campaign; our servers almost melted on the first day it was launched. We received tens of thousands of submissions for local organizations. As a result, the campaign was renewed for 2 subsequent years.

I'm most proud of our lottery project with Reflexions because of the importance placed on data security. We were dealing with financial and governmental information which had been stored on an antiquated system. To say that it was important to keep a lid on things and do it properly would be an understatement.

For the US Tennis Association, Reflexions built a beautiful roadmap which our client received enthusiastically. However, they never got around to fund the actual production. The project never took off, through no fault of Reflexions.

How did Reflexions perform from a project management standpoint?

Reflexions delivered on time and on budget every time. I have a friend working for a large consulting company which deals with huge logistics systems. Their budgets are astronomical, reaching hundreds of millions of dollars every year, so slipping by a tiny bit here and there is not a big deal. In the advertising industry, the work is done project-by-project even though there is an agency-of-record relationship. There is no wiggle room, but Reflexions nailed it every time.

We used Jira and Basecamp for tracking the project. Slack didn't exist at the time. Reflexions also had a couple of tools on their end, but I'm less familiar with those.

What did you find most impressive about Reflexions?

I have technology expertise myself, having started as a software engineer before moving to advertising. I have a low tolerance for the acronyms and terminology thrown around by people without an understanding of them. Many consultants think that if they throw around enough smoke and mirrors, the person sitting on the opposite side of the table will start assuming they know what they're talking about. It's rare to meet an independent company with the depth of knowledge and expertise of Reflexions. They think not just of how to rivet together what was asked of them, but also about the underlying business goals. They are able to make strategic recommendations for those goals.

Are there any areas Reflexions could improve?

There were minor aberrations, but nothing systemic. Around 2 years before our relationship ended, Reflexions employed a project manager who was a bit lackluster. They let him go and put someone else on, who was terrific.

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with Reflexions?

If the person explaining the task at hand is not able to do so in a truly clear way—without throwing around buzzwords and acronyms—then they themselves do not understand the problem. Someone who really understands what they're doing can truly explain the complexities of a project to anyone else, regardless of technology level.