What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
The first deliverable from them was really a new logo and brand personality, promise, and value. We have begun to implement that internally, and it’s been met with open arms. It's an excitement within our company that honestly has been lacking. We have a very young group in general, and they were really keen on the fact that our image and industry were dated.
All of our teams are excited about upgrading. It's a huge undertaking for my team, in particular, to roll this into all of the collateral and assets that we currently have, but seeing that refresh come alive has really just motivated our staff beyond belief, even further than we hoped.
We’ll know the full scope and breadth of their work once we release it to the public October 1. As it stands now, we're already seeing the results internally. The amount of engagement with our folks and the excitement is definitely through the roof. It will take us the better part of a year to roll the complete redesign out to the system itself, but I think we're going to be met with success on that.
How did Brave UX perform from a project management standpoint?
Their management style was very similar to ours, and that's with full transparency. You could tell they had a talented team and that they focused a lot of time on that side of it. They immediately set up a cadence of meetings twice a week, pulled in the right people, set expectations, and had a full schedule; all of the key elements from a PMO standpoint were in place. Again, that gave us confidence, because that's how we run our house as well. That was maintained throughout. They planned the work and worked the plan, and that's what we saw from day one all the way through to the final.
In terms of project management tools, we used DropBox to share things, and all meetings were recorded. We communicated probably daily through the project. There was a lot of communication, which helped the project move along.
What did you find most impressive about them?
Honesty comes to mind. There were plenty of times when we had to have tough conversations. In particular, around the beginning of March, I jumped on a call to deliver some tough news that they needed to process, and they were open to that. When there were things that we simply couldn't do because of time or cost, there was always a level of transparency and honesty that I respected. I've done business with a lot of people, and when it comes to sales, people often over-promise and then pick up the pieces along the way. I never got that vibe from Brave UX.
The other thing I would mention is the amount of over-delivery provided by Brave UX was impressive. That’s something I picked up on early, and that's something we’re passionate about at my company as well; we don’t over-promise, but we tend to over-deliver when given the opportunity.
Are there any areas they could improve?
They are so smart at what they do that sometimes, what they said went over the heads of some of our executive leadership. That almost created surprises and backlash because people didn't really know what they were talking about in the moment. We’d have to meet afterward to catch them up on what everything meant. They could be more relatable to some companies that don’t have the same level of skill or understanding. We did address that as soon as I realized it, and they adjusted. Overall, I think as the project went on, they got better at that.
Any advice for potential customers?
I was honest up front regarding what our goals were and where we wanted to be at the end of it all. I provided anything I could to help Brave better craft what it was that we needed. I’m blessed to have a technology background, so that probably helped, but providing as much information as possible helped a lot as well. We did a lot of internal, passionate debate to decide we were going to do this, so we had a very clear vision of what that looked like for us; we just didn't know how to get there. That might be the hardest thing for some organizations to be able to provide, but I think it was vital to the success of this project.
Brave UX met expectations and delivered on project requirements. The team communicated effectively but could have been more involved by asking questions and interacting more closely with the team. They would be a great partner for larger companies with a solid idea of what they want.