Agiledrop - developers for agencies and in-house teams

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We are a digital agency specializing in Drupal development, UX [user experience] design, business analysis, and performance tracking. We work within the nonprofit, arts, cultural and heritage sectors. We have a growing number of stable clients for which we typically focus on the development of websites with integration to third-party systems like CRM [customer relationship management] or marketing tools. I'm the managing director of the company. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with AGILEDROP?

We came to a point of expanding our Drupal development team while also needing extra capacity in order to flex as and when required. We previously tried working with independent freelancers, which did work, but we came to find the approach painful. AGILEDROP has supported us across multiple engagements.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

AGILEDROP has completed four or five projects for our company, some more substantial than others. At peak capacity, our team from AGILEDROP has featured three to four resources.

How did you come to work with AGILEDROP?

I actively researched a couple of agencies in terms of capabilities, trustworthiness, and so on. The choice came down between AGILEDROP and another vendor. I had a conversation with both and got along very well with AGILEDROP's principal [founder and CEO Iztok Smolic]. When the right opportunity came up, we started doing business.

What is the status of this engagement?

We have been working with AGILEDROP for two years. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

In all of the work we've done with AGILEDROP, from the start, the level of trustworthiness and their quality of work have been excellent.

AGILEDROP has remained available to us when we needed them. Despite the fact that we're based in the United Kingdom and AGILEDROP is not, the level of communication has been excellent. I run a distributed company, with resources in Wales, Hungary, London, and Argentina, so I'm used to working remotely. When working with someone who wasn't a part of the company, the process had been painful in the past. We have been given access to AGILEDROP's time tracking. They engage with our tools and systems without a problem and we've never had to re-audit a piece of coding from them. We've questioned functionalities and behavior, but this is a normal part of unit testing.

How did AGILEDROP perform from a project management standpoint?

AGILEDROP has delivered their assigned work within time and budget. At the start of the relationship, we engaged in a direct collaboration with the developers, which continues. During the course of time, as we did more work together, we also engaged a resource from AGILEDROP for project managing developers. We typically run projects through our own manager but, when it comes to AGILEDROP's resources, particularly for bigger pieces of work, they also provide someone who makes sure that resources are being used most efficiently, in a way that will best help the project.

We use a tool called Mantis internally while AGILEDROP uses JIRA for project management. 

What distinguishes AGILEDROP from other providers?

I give them citations in terms of reliability, trustworthiness, and level of skill. AGILEDROP is a very keen company. They're always thinking of ways in which something can be made better. AGILEDROP is very energetic about doing the work in a good way.

We've had queries that weren't related to the direct piece of work that we were handling. A particular question came around hosting and performance, particularly around Acquia. AGILEDROP doesn't provide hosting services, but they do have a couple of system administrators. We had a quick chat with them, AGILEDROP jumped on to the conversation, and added some ideas to the thread. Ultimately, the issue was related to the project on which AGILEDROP was working, but not with their actual tasks. AGILEDROP was very forthcoming and willing to contribute.

Is there anything AGILEDROP could have improved or done differently?

The relationship was good from the get-go and has remained good. What has also been good was the fact that we've adapted in a couple of instances, in terms of timekeeping and how tasks are broken down and displayed to us. AGILEDROP has responded positively to these requests, and the changes have improved the relationship. If we were only using AGILEDROP now and again for a couple of hours, we wouldn't need to have such tight tracking by day and hour. However, because we're doing bigger pieces of work, we need to be able to track against an overall budget. We need a more complex picture, to which AGILEDROP responded positively.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We are a French web agency specializing exclusively in Drupal. We also have a subsidiary organization dedicated to web hosting. Our team is composed of 12 developers. We work with big customers in France within the media and publishing industries. We've been in business for almost 15 years.

What is your position?

I am the founder and Chief Executive Officer of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with AGILEDROP?

They had skills in HTML and CSS development which we were lacking internally.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

We work with AGILEDROP exclusively on integration projects. We are developers ourselves and thus have a limited need of skills within our work. One of our projects was for a multilingual media website dedicated to learning French. It's a very nice, responsive website.

The team assigned to us consisted of two developers as well as a dedicated project manager for each project.

How did you come to work with AGILEDROP?

We've worked with many different project partners for integration work. One of my business partners has been relocated in Slovenia. He met AGILEDROP during an event. We initially gave them a trial project. AGILEDROP performed very well and we decided to make them a preferred partner.

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

The total development cost has been approximately $130,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them three years ago.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

The thing which we appreciate most about working with AGILEDROP is their ability to integrate with our workflow.

They deliver what is asked of them with good quality and go beyond what we expect. As an example, we assigned them work based on templates without interaction descriptions from the designers. AGILEDROP created these interactions perfectly and our customers were happy with the results.

How did AGILEDROP perform from a project management standpoint?

We use Redmine for all of our projects. They've integrated their team seamlessly within it. AGILEDROP is very good at making estimates at the beginning of a project. They always turn out to be spot-on or slightly below our budget.

What distinguishes AGILEDROP from other providers?

I appreciate their research and development process. AGILEDROP regularly trains their developers in order to be up-to-date with the latest technologies. They generate responsive web designs and are skilled at design, integration, as well as development. We don't use them as developers but we know that we're working with people who have these skills, which gives us peace of mind. When working with a CMS like Drupal, it's important to employ people who embrace all these specializations.

Is there anything AGILEDROP could have improved or done differently?

We have regular meetings and improve our work processes constantly. Every business relationship can evolve, but we've had a very good working collaboration.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We are an organization focused on science and culture, with the goal of bringing peace in the minds of men and women.

What is your position?

I am a web architect and lead developer.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with AGILEDROP?

We needed web development resources to help us complete a series of different projects. Finding an external partner was going to be crucial to the completion of our annual objectives, so it was important that we find the right external expertise.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

The work they've done for us spans from site management to pure development to design. Most of our work has been Drupal-related and has included smaller, bug-fixing projects. Our site has grown in time, and the size of their team has varied accordingly.

How did you come to work with AGILEDROP?

I had been in touch with them for a couple of small projects and found them to be well organized and reactive. I decided to entrust them with a larger undertaking.

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

I don't have access to exact figures. AGILEDROP are quite flexible in terms of pricing, depending on the size of the current project.

What is the status of this engagement?

We're currently working with them for the maintenance of two websites.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

We produce a significant amount of web content, and it would be difficult to measure the impact of a single branch or developer. My colleagues have always been satisfied with our results. AGILEDROP's work has always been released on time and using state-of-the-art technologies.

How did AGILEDROP perform from a project management standpoint?

They've always delivered their work on time and are quite flexible in terms of timeframes. If the development schedule for a project extends past was agreed upon, AGILEDROP will accommodate us. Our development is done using agile techniques. We have daily conference calls, use GitLab for code tracking, and have a ticketing system with which we manage time and bug fixes.

What distinguishes AGILEDROP from other providers?

Their flexibility and punctual delivery are quite rare, given the high quality of the products they are able to produce.

Is there anything AGILEDROP could have improved or done differently?

They could try to have a greater physical presence by traveling to our headquarters for reporting and delivery purposes. Aside from this, I find them to be quite good as they are.