Bit Zesty

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a lead software developer for a company called Easol. We're an experience commerce platform that allows creators to build and develop their events online. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Bit Zesty?

Our company was growing rapidly and we had a shortage of engineers. We brought Bit Zesty in to help us build crucial systems.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They helped us with various pieces of software development. We had independent projects that we briefed them on, and they worked closely with our team to build everything. They helped us make our email system more efficient, upgraded us to a newer version of Ruby on Rails, and set up our two-factor authentication system.

They also assisted us with recommendations on how to improve our infrastructure to make our platform better overall.  

What is the team composition?

We primarily worked with Matt (CTO & Co-Founder) and Lubos (Developer), but we collaborated on multiple projects with Bit Zesty, so we worked with various people depending on the project. 

How did you come to work with Bit Zesty?

Someone within our company knew about them. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with them between December 2021–September 2022.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The feedback from projects we collaborated on has been very positive. From an internal perspective, our team enjoyed working with their developers, and they helped us to achieve high-quality work. 

How did Bit Zesty perform from a project management standpoint?

We didn’t work on a deadline, but their time estimates were usually reasonably accurate, and they always engaged in the feedback process with us. We used Asana, Trello, Slack, email, and we ran daily stand-up meetings over Zoom. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were incredibly adaptive. When we gave them feedback they always incorporated that into their work, and they actively tried to adopt our workflow. They were detail-oriented and proactive about mentioning things to us when they saw something that didn’t look right.  

Are there any areas they could improve?

We struggled with the responsiveness of some of their teammates because we were all on different schedules. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be upfront about your expectations, and explain your company’s style and the way you want things structured.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am an NHS doctor and NHS England's Clinical Entrepreneur and UCLPartners Innovation Fellow. I am the founder of a healthcare recruitment agency. We connect NHS Hospitals with doctors and nurses from overseas.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Bit Zesty, and what were your goals?

NHS is under severe strain because of significant staff shortages. Brexit, Covid, Ageing population, and lack of Govt strategy have compounded the issue. We are a small team of doctors who started the idea of a digital recruitment platform for qualified professionals from overseas to the NHS. However, we are doctors and never built any software tools.

We sought bit Zesty help for this project. Bit Zesty team drew the plan and delivered the product to our specification in the right amount of time for the right cost. They gave the copyrights to us. They did everything by plan and to our expectations at a reasonable cost. They helped us with the initial website as well and logo selection.

SOLUTION

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

I happened to meet the founder of Bit Zesty at an Entrepreneurs event and got impressed by his knowledge of the field. He was passionate and seemed like someone I could trust. Luckily, it worked out well as the Bit Zesty team delivered what we expected.

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

1. We had a raw idea.
2. Discussed this with Matt at Bit Zesty.
3. Did a storyboard and initial plan layout.
4. They delivered the product (platform) on ruby on rails in 6 months' time.
5. We asked for the IP rights to be held by us and they agreed.
6. Bit Zesty team continued to support the platform for any further needs of the platform.
7. We continued to use their service for any enhancements in the platform functionality. 8. We intend to use their service for a similar platform built for nurses as well in the future.

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

Around 4 to 5. But, one or two at any given point in time.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The idea of the platform is to decrease the time taken to recruit an overseas staff from 4 months (average) to 6 weeks. Bit Zesty team built the product to our specifications and we continued to enhance it based on our feedback.

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

Timing - perfect. Always responsive. Tools - Trello

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

Personalised. Smart and quick. They understand the pulse of the customer and do not hesitate to make recommendations which I think are essential ( for someone like us who has no prior knowledge).

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

They are good. I do not think we could have done it differently.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the Senior Digital Officer at a London-based charity. We advocate for better corporate respect for human rights.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Bit Zesty, and what were your goals?

The existing support arrangement for one of the project websites we run had expired. We don't have any in-house IT or Dev capabilities, so we were looking for a reputable firm to take on the maintenance and support for the site, as well as complete a feature development sprint.

SOLUTION

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

We carried out a Request for Information process, during which we sought details from 5 different vendors on their development process, past experience and pricing. We held a number of follow-up meetings, and selected BitZesty based on their competitive pricing and flexible approach to support options.

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

We had an onboarding meeting in which we set out our expectations for the relationship and priority areas of work. Trello was used to manage this work through the development process, with an initial focus on remedying some long-standing bugs.

The sprint work was more involved, and we held several scoping and design sessions where we collaboratively defined EPICs and user stories for the sprint, along with the associated blocks of technical work.

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

BitZesty were always keen to bring the relevant team members to the table. Our Project Manager served as the main point of contact, but over the course of our work with them we also engaged the CTO, Designers and multiple full stack developers as appropriate.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Working with BitZesty led to a marked improvement in our bug remediation process - issues which had gone unfixed for years were now being looked at. The sprint work delivered a very complex new piece of search functionality which enabled us to interrogate the data on the website in new ways, supporting our data analysis and report writing.

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

We had regular meetings with the project team, outside of which we kept in regular contact via email and Trello.

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

BitZesty really took the time to understand our needs and propose ways of working that fit with our organisation. They didn't hesitate to challenge our thinking, deconstruct ideas, and propose solutions we may have overlooked.

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

The complexity of what we sought to achieve in our sprint work did result in an agreed overrun on the sprint - BitZesty were great in bringing in extra skills when needed to overcome the challenges we were facing, at no extra cost to us, in order to get us to launch.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Director/CTO Occupational Health and Safety Management software as a service provider for chemical and property industries

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Bit Zesty, and what were your goals?

Upgrade/rewrite of 2 existing applications, add new functionality and provide support for the existing applications until decommissioned.

SOLUTION

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

Their agile approach to development made a big difference as we had many changing requirements from our customers which needed a flexible team to work with. Other vendors were less flexible in their approach.

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

Rewrite of 2 ruby on rails applications. Initially take over support of legacy applications and then create a development plan for upgrades to include new requirements as well as report generation, rest api and mobile application. Technologies used: Ruby on Rails Ruby, Python, Javascript, Java Couchdb Postgresql Elasticsearch SOLR DocX4J Linux/Freebsd Docker Vmware AWS

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

We worked closely with Biz Zesty for over 10 years and dealt with project managers and developers including regular catchups with their CTO and CEO.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Both legacy applications were fully supported during their rewriting and decommissioning even though Bit Zesty had not been the initial developers. We had made on boarding commitments to a number of customers by a certain date and Bit Zesty allowed us to deliver on our promises.

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

Email, slack, trello, assana, telephone calls, meetings. For any urgent issues we were able to contact them quickly.

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

Ability to quickly change focus in order to tackle any urgent issues or change of priority. Managment/CEO/CTO took time to understand our company and goals.

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

They could have pushed back more against our internal company thoughts on hosting. For example Bit Zesty encouraged us to use AWS rather than Vmware machines be we disagreed. As time has passed we now realise we should have followed their advice.