Coherent Solutions

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the lead for the software test team at Cellares; our organization builds instruments, including its software, focused on cell therapy solutions.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Coherent Solutions?

We needed help with test automation for our company.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Coherent Solutions is doing API testing and automation for us; they have developed great solutions and frameworks. Their team is testing the software we are building at our company and does that by creating test automation scripts that run as a regression to ensure that no new bugs are introduced into the software because of new development.

They are automating the manual test cases that my team is writing and developing improvements and optimizations for speeding things up and having better quality software. They do a large amount of testing and create many tests, resulting in high-quality coding.

The software we build runs the instrument creating drugs to treat cancer — a cell therapy solution. The software we make has different subsystems for our customers to develop their processes and then run them to manufacture the drug.

What is the team composition?

We work with eight people from their team, including a lead from their side.

How did you come to work with Coherent Solutions?

One of the team members on our team had a project with them in a previous company and was very happy with their work. We decided to interview them and engaged with a person from their team, and after that, they started building the staff for the project.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with them in August 2021, and it is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The quality of their work is impressive. Everyone makes mistakes here and there, which is why we have peer reviews so they can correct the problems. It is normal for software development as you can never have it bug-free; there is no software without bugs.

Nonetheless, they're very proactive, and we haven't had to handhold them — they have very experienced, top-level engineers on their team.

How did Coherent Solutions perform from a project management standpoint?

They are never behind, meet deadlines, and sometimes are so proactive that they let us know if they're running out of things to do when our developers don't implement new features fast enough to start automating the tests. 

They have their lead that breaks things down and reviews the work, and we collaborate and meet with the team biweekly. They are located in Belarus, so there is a time difference, but they are very good despite that.

Regarding tools, we use Azure and have our boards with all the tasks. We also have a chart showing the progress regarding the number of tests they are automating and the pass rate. These are all created by them so that we can see the progress.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their knowledge and dedication are outstanding — they are very interested in working on the product. In my 20 years in this field, I've never seen an outsourced company interested in what they are doing and even give solutions to some issues. They offer suggestions for what they can modify to make things faster and optimize things better.

Normally, when companies outsource, they tell them what to do and check their work, but I trust Coherent Solutions 100%. Sometimes I do a spot check and perhaps find something incorrect and give them suggestions, but I trust them. Compared to who I used to work with, they are outstanding. Even compared to people who were local employees, their quality is something I haven't seen.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don't think there's anything they can improve on.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Don't micromanage them; I've heard from them that they are so interested and creative here because we don't restrict them. You aren't as engaged or interested when you only do what you are told to do. Of course, it depends on what employees they will get and the cost, but you shouldn't micromanage people with real creativity. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a product manager at an agricultural solutions company. My focus is on the plant nutrition business unit. We manufacture soil and foliar applied fertilizers and also have a software product that provides agronomic recommendations for specialty crop growers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Coherent Solutions?

We were building a completely new software tool. Agriculture retailers are challenged with managing fertility programs for their customers every year. They’re helping service their growers by providing fertilizer and agronomic recommendations.

This process used to be done manually through spreadsheets, but we had an opportunity to put all of that into a web-based application. We could make it much easier to build these programs, share with the growers, and stay organized.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The key deliverables would’ve been to make efficient and agronomically sound product recommendations based on the crop's nutrient requirements. We wanted the recommendation to deliver the proper amount of nutrients at a cost-effective price point to the customer.

What we’re trying to do is look at the crop needs and then provide a custom-tailored fertility program for that crop. We needed to take these complex agronomic situations, analyze soil and water data, and then put all of that together into a model that would deliver the right amount of fertilizer at the right time.

All of these were compiled into a cloud-based interface.

What is the team composition?

We were working with 10-15 people from Coherent, which included business analysts, project managers, software developers, frontend designers, and DevOps engineers. We also were assigned an account manager that ensured we had the right team members.

How did you come to work with Coherent Solutions?

Coherent Solutions was selected after interviewing multiple service providers based on their skill and competancy.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were designing a brand new software platform with a goal in mind for the release date. Coherent Solutions did a great job at setting expectations for availability, which helped us to launch our product within a short timeframe successfully.

We were pleased with the speed and quality of the development. There wasn’t a lot of rework that needed to be done, and they were accurate on their timing and budget expectations.

We have a good relationship with our customers. Providing this tool has strengthened the relationship with our clients. It helps make their lives easier and helps them stay organized.

How did Coherent Solutions perform from a project management standpoint?

We have lots of communication with them. The project managers kept us updated regularly on the project. We use Jira for ticket tracking and Slack for communication between the teams. We see them as an extension of our own team.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their ability to ask the right questions is impressive. Looking at a software product, there are a lot of details that need to get worked out as development continues. Some firms believe that all of those details need to be hammered out at the start, but Coherent Solutions has been very flexible.

By asking the right questions, they’ve discovered areas that we haven’t identified. I just feel very confident in their developers’ competency and quality.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I think everything has been pretty good so far.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be open and transparent. They’ve very honest. If they’re not comfortable with what you’re asking for, I think they’ll let you know that. If you’re transparent with your objectives and expectations, they’ll let you know if it’s going to be a good match.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of digital and data at one of the largest fitness franchises in the US. We have over 2,000 locations worldwide. I oversee the development and delivery of digital and data solutions for franchisees, customers, and prospect customers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Coherent Solutions?

We released a mobile app as part of our larger digital strategy in 2019. It was an important part of providing additional services and value to members.

We started development with a smaller company that we’d had experience with and knew could get us off the ground. They released a strong first version, but our ability to scale with that company was limited. We needed a suitable partner to do more development, faster and cost-effectively, so we hired Coherent Solutions.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Coherent Solutions’ members are effectively an extension of our team; they participate in all of our scrum ceremonies for both the iOS and Android app. We provide guidance by breaking down our ideas into user stories and defined tasks. Then they provide technical leadership, design, development, testing, and support. They help elaborate on our concepts and build, deliver, and support those capabilities.

What is the team composition?

We have an internal program manager and other resources that provide the day-to-day management, architecture strategy, and guidance.

How did you come to work with Coherent Solutions?

Our mobile and web development manager had worked with them in the past and recommended them. He spoke highly of them and felt they’d be a really good partner for us to consider. They had experience related to what we were trying to do. On top of that, they were ablw to staff a team big enough to deliver at the speed we needed.  

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Coherent Solutions around February 2020, and we had some resources working with us by March. We completed the onboarding pretty quickly. We finished building the new team by April 2020 and released a first set of new capabilities shortly after. They continue to provide support for the app.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Now we’re fully operational and are running at peak velocity. As a result, we’ve been able to decrease the total cost of development while increasing velocity significantly. We’ve had a 300%–400% increase in output. Coherent Solutions is incredibly efficient, and their work is high-quality.

How did Coherent Solutions perform from a project management standpoint?

We work closely with Coherent Solutions’ team, but our project manager oversees their work. We follow a traditional scrum project management style. We run two-week sprints, which culminate in mobile releases.

For each sprint, we create clickable prototypes in order to further elaborate on the requirements. Then we break requirements down into user stories that are tracked in Jira. Then we story-point those and use the points to determine how many stories can be done in a certain sprint. The story points are handed down to the developers.

We’re using the Atlassian suite, Jira and Confluence. We’re using a lot of automation tools, design tools like Figma, and a prototyping tool.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Unlike other partners, Coherent Solutions’ team are true partners. They’re invested in providing high-quality services and supporting our needs. They truly want to help us be successful.

They’ve always been able to meet our needs. When needed, they pull in additional resources in a pinch, and they have a depth and breadth of skills that we’ve been able to leverage. Coherent Solutions’ team takes pride in what they do; they’re committed to building high-quality solutions. I have full confidence in their abilities, and I’ve come to appreciate their support and commitment to us.  

Are there any areas they could improve?

Overall, I’m very happy with our partnership with them, but I have noticed a few things. In their drive to make us happy, they don’t always give us bad news or enough information to make the right decision. They’re very quick to say yes when sometimes they should present us with other options to consider. Sometimes that means cutting corners or introducing risks.

On top of that, we’d like to have a better coverage program in place. Coherent Solutions is in a different time zone and is a number of hours ahead of us. Although we have them on call, it could be the middle of the night for them. That’s a limitation of our engagement with them, not of their abilities.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

It’s important to establish a good working environment early on, so that Coherent Solutions will know that it’s okay to have difficult conversations with you. They have the right coverage and support models in place, but you should account for support outside of working hours in the beginning.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of a startup that’s based out of California. We’re a messaging platform for enterprise brands that rely on service delivery networks. We’ve created a system for small businesses to directly message their customers using SMS and text. It also allows enterprises to the initiative and manages conversations between independent businesses that are operating on their behalf. This helps increase customer satisfaction.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Coherent Solutions?

We hired them to expand a codebase that we had built internally. They were an offshore development team.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

First, we expanded it to build interactions between Windows-based computers and our platform. Second, they helped build our platform and migrate a legacy architecture to an AWS-based system, all from scratch. To manage conversations and messages, they constructed interfacing and developed the underlying text messaging infrastructure. At the same time, we implemented APIs for how enterprises interact with the system and roll that out with an offshore team. The backend was based on Python. All three things were done at once over the span of three-and-a-half months.

What is the team composition?

I think we worked with five members of Coherent Solutions.

How did you come to work with Coherent Solutions?

This is the fourth time I’ve worked with them. I initially interacted with them in 2007 for a different company.

How much have you invested with them?

I would say we spent $60,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We took them on for this project in June 2019. The work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We are dependent on the work Coherent Solutions creates. It’s our core product and our customers use it every day. The idea itself was quite unique, but they’ve done a great job with it. They fix issues quickly and work at a very high cycle time.

How did Coherent Solutions perform from a project management standpoint?

It was excellent. We have an agile process based on a two-week release cycle. The teams consistently deliver on work every two weeks. Anton (Project Manager, Coherent Solutions) is our main point of contact. He makes sure we have the right resources. Our organizations fit and communicate well over different time zones.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The people we have from Coherent Solutions are a notch above other teams we’ve had. Their management is also great; they really care about the success of our project. Lastly, they also have a strong long-term outlook. They became partners with us despite being an offshore team.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Nothing comes to mind. We’ve had challenges from a code or execution standpoint, but when those manifest themselves, they don’t get defensive or evasive. They go above and beyond to address these issues.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I’d say to start small. You have to figure out how to organize yourself before working with this team. You also have to accommodate their working hours—we were based in California, which is on the other side of the planet.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are a state-wide health care payer for the state of Colorado that supports a membership of roughly 220,000 across commercial, Medicare and Medicaid business segments. I am the IT Director.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Coherent Solutions?

We first started with our Business Intelligence team and then augmented our Digital Portfolio team. Later we have added staff augmentation for Web API projects as well as DevOps Engineers.

What were your goals for this project?

For the Business Intelligence project, we wanted to change our technology stack and implement a star schema model using MS SQL with Pentaho and SAS from an Oracle based one.

For the Digital Portfolio, we wanted to eliminate externally hosted web platforms written in legacy architecture into a dynamic content management platform using SiteCore. We implemented the first phase of that project 2 years ago and are now on subsequent phases.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We find Coherent very responsive to specialty positions. They are quick at finding high quality developers experienced in SiteCore, Pentaho, UI/UX and Azure Cloud Services.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

They design our database and architecture for our Business Intelligence platform as well as quality assurance testing and deliver features every 2 weeks including automated validation for certification of the production loads.

For our Digital Platform, they provide the UI/UX Design assistance as well as architecture design/development and Quality Assurance testing for Web UI and API solutions in an agile environment that delivers every 2 weeks.

What was the team composition?

We keep a team lead on the project side for both Business Intelligence teams as well as Digital Portfolio team. Current composition is roughly:

• 1 UI/UX Designer
• 8 .NET Web Software Engineers
• 9 ETL Developers
• 1 ETL Architect
• 4 Quality Assurance Testers
• 2 DevOps Engineers

Coherent also frequently brings in Security and Network Engineers to assist with any troubleshooting or design.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

As the result of Coherent providing solution assistance and staff augmentation, we have successfully brought in-house the main public website launching a content management solution that gives more power to our marketing and sales teams while also eliminating that vendor hosted contract and saving us money.

We are currently on track to eliminate 2 more vendors hosting website solutions in 2020 by bringing into same solution. Our Business Intelligence solution is on track with eliminating our legacy data analytics platform in early 2020.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Our project management staff are internal employees and the Coherent staff have worked very well with our existing teams. We run our project teams in a agile scrum methodology and Coherent teams are part of our onshore teams in all stand-ups and other agile ceremonies with morning overlap of our business hours.

They further support our teams by providing early morning overlap while our onshore teams are still asleep which provides an ability to have items completed and handed over at start of our core business work day. We use TFS for all code repositories and JIRA for project management communications.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Team members have very good communication skills as well as technical skills. They have enhanced our own team members technically and contribute greatly to solution design.

We really like how they overlap part of our business days and participate directly in the business meetings. As mentioned previously, Coherent also is quick at finding specialty skills for us.

Are there any areas for improvement?

The team has very little areas needed for improvement. They contribute in our agile retrospective process to look at what is working and what is not and frequently adjust. I recommend any one new to the teams look at how that process can continually improve areas for them.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am a proprietor, co-founder, and partner of Athletic Intelligence Measures LLC. We've developed a measure of sport-specific intellectual ability—we call it the Athletic Intelligence Quotient, or AIQ.

We're currently in use right now by multiple teams in the NFL, the NBA, Major League Baseball, other major American sports, collegiate athletics, the Olympics, and international soccer clubs. Our company revolves around our tests, which we’ve developed internally.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Coherent Solutions?

We hired Coherent Solutions to revamp our mobile app and our web-based scoring portal. The scoring portal was extremely slow, to the point that it was an issue for our clients and us.

In the world of athletic evaluation, seconds matter; that's why we asked Coherent to help us speed up the database loading and visualization processes. We also needed a team that could bring a strategic mindset to the development process.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Coherent began the engagement by evaluating our existing solutions, identifying areas that were potential issues in terms of stability. They provided us a list of recommended action items that we could undertake to increase the reliability and efficiency of both our mobile application and our web-based scoring portal.

Coherent also worked on the app itself, which is built in Ionic. We haven’t rolled out the new version yet, but they’ve helped us implement solutions for some of our key workflows and requirements.

We have some innovative options now for visualizing different pieces of data on the interface. We’re still working through the details, trying to understand how these ideas will fit with our current scoring methodology, as well as how they’ll be implemented on devices like the iPad.

What is the team composition?

Dmitri (Service Delivery Manager, Coherent Solutions) was our project manager, and he served as a midway point between the developers and us.

How did you come to work with Coherent Solutions?

We started with a pretty exhaustive search process about a year or a year and a half ago. We were trying to identify tech companies that had the resources necessary to help us reach our goals. 

We had a long list at the beginning that we narrowed down to three options. We had in-depth conversations with each of these firms, and I ended up speaking to an existing customer of Coherent, who told me about their experience working with the team. Their comments were nothing but positive.

This, combined with the rest of our analysis, indicated that Coherent would be the best match.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent roughly $40,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The audit started in December 2018, and the project continued until June 2019. They’re working on some mockups for us right now because we’re planning a new phase of work with them.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They were incredibly successful. We saw them deliver on everything that we set out to accomplish, specifically with speeding up the load times on the scoring database.

How did Coherent Solutions perform from a project management standpoint?

Our project manager was part of every call and had a solid grasp of the big picture. He knew enough details about what the developers were doing that he could synthesize everything and keep us in the loop.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I was pleased with their initiative, their attitude, and their reaction times. We’ve explored plenty of dead ends with other development teams, and they were so vastly different than those other providers. The number of times that they came to us with possible solutions was commendable.

Every time they presented an idea, they gave the pros and cons and let us know if they thought we were making the right or wrong decision. We were always pleased because they still went along with our vision for the products.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t have any specific concerns from when we worked together, but I did struggle at times with the fact that they were spread out between the US and Eastern Europe. At the time, I was working in another position that was relatively inflexible time-wise, and I couldn’t always find an optimal time to speak with the project manager and the developers. 

Eventually, we found a system that worked, and I give a ton of credit to the project manager for setting clear expectations and making himself available. I can’t put all of that on them, because I was very inflexible about timing and scheduling.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Come prepared when you first meet with Coherent Solutions. Whoever you choose to be your liaison, make sure they review everything ahead of time before setting initial expectations. It’s critical to make sure that your talks at the beginning are as meaningful as possible. This will set you set up a good weekly flow of status updates and open discussions, even during development phases.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of engineering for a software company. We’re developing software to manage home healthcare. Our goal is for agencies to be able to manage the process of getting home healthcare to patients.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Coherent Solutions?

We needed help with development, software design, and testing for our software solution.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They designed and developed our SaaS application. The frontend is in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. The framework is Angular and the backend is Ruby on Rails. The database we used is in PostgreSQL. They provided design and testing as well.

What is the team composition?

We started with two developers and built up to six developers plus 2-3 testers.

How did you come to work with Coherent Solutions?

When I was working at a previous company, one of my architects knew one of the directors at Coherent Solutions well. At a previous startup before this company, my friend told me about working with them on a small project. We had a good relationship and good results out of that endeavor. When I started this new startup, we decided to go with them.

How much have you invested with them?

We invested $1 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in November 2013 and the work is ongoing. We put the work on pause in August 2019, but the relationship is still open.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The software engineers and testers have done an excellent job during the development process. The program testers have been able to find and report any problems on a weekly basis. On Jira, we monitor how well they’re doing. They accomplish about 85% of the tasks during the two-week sprints, which is very reasonable. While, as with any development project, there are bugs, the overall quality is good. I’m happy with what they’ve done.

How did Coherent Solutions perform from a project management standpoint?

I follow how the project is moving and how well they’re accomplishing their tasks on a weekly basis. They’ve been extremely flexible in terms of accommodating any changes from either side of the project. If there’s an issue, they’ve been able to substitute an employee within a reasonable time. There is somebody who manages the day-to-day stuff from Belarus.

They have a project manager onsite whom I talk to every other night. The manager succinctly explains the project goes over Jira tickets. We review what they’ve accomplished and if they’ve fallen behind in some areas. She also sends emails even during the day to track updates and give us warnings on what we should look for. She’s done an excellent job.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They are very flexible. For a startup, that’s very important. If somebody leaves, they can replace them right away. They’re very flexible in terms of our changes as well and regarding payments. Their team is flexible, professional, and understands the realities of running a business.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I think they hire a lot of younger people who are very energetic but may not have a lot of experience. The turnover rate is higher than in an established organization. I would like for them to have a way for the software developers or testers to stay with their organization longer. We had a solid architect for a few years, but he left before completing the project with us.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

It’s important to have specifications written down. Leaving things open and unclear will create a lot of unnecessary back and forth, which is especially difficult over different time zones. Miscommunication is the root cause of this problem. Being clear is not a problem for them specifically, but for anyone in this business. The more details, the better.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I serve as the VP of information technology at a nonprofit based in Minneapolis. We serve about 2,000 people with various disabilities. I worked with Coherent Solutions in two of my prior roles. Primarily, I utilized them when I was the COO of a SaaS company that provided a messaging platform for retailers. It was our platform’s job to let consumers know when prices changed or when new products appeared on websites.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Coherent Solutions?

We hired them for DevOps, analytics, and reporting for our SaaS company.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We were a venture-funded startup and we lacked the infrastructure to support our growing operations. I needed someone that had the wherewithal to support AWS back-office needs. Their team helped structure us to be more efficient and elastic, in terms of our growing retail demand.

To do so, they put together and recommended Amazon tools, servers, and other infrastructure components that would allow us to scale as our data and client list expanded. They also provided server support for our applications that ran across a myriad of machines.

What is the team composition?

We had a team of about 10 working on the project. 

How did you come to work with Coherent Solutions?

I have a 20-year relationship with the founder of the company. I’ve sought them out for their services in prior positions for custom software development and reporting.

How much have you invested with them?

In total, we spent about $1,000,000 over the course of the relationship.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement lasted from 2013–2017. When our company merged with another, the partnership ended.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The most compelling metric was their ability to rapidly engage a growing number of customers while maintaining their ability to meet their needs. While that’s a soft metric, they were able to get the job done just as we needed. 

How did Coherent Solutions perform from a project management standpoint?

I appreciate that their model includes an onshore component. We had an account manager that acted as a project manager in liaising with the offshore team. That was a key component to the success of the project. If I felt that I wasn’t getting the results I was looking for offshore, I knew that there was someone within reach that could act as my advocate.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The breadth of their offerings is the number one thing that makes them stand out. Of course, we used them primarily for DevOps. However, I also hired them for some reporting and custom software development needs. They have a wide range of capabilities across several platforms. I didn’t use them for mobile development, but I know they’re capable in that area, too. It’s helpful to have a one-stop-shop that can offer a reliable, wide range of services to your company.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They always kept an invite open for me to visit their team in-person. It was something that I regretted not doing earlier in the engagement. I would’ve appreciated that in-person meeting being worked into the onboarding process because I’m sure it would’ve benefited the dynamic of our relationship early in the partnership.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

The main focus should be communication. Expect to regularly discuss the project with your account manager. Additionally, expect some type of standup or reporting on at least a weekly basis. That was a key element in our partnership.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We provide a service for financial institutions in the U.S. I’m a director of data development for the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Coherent Solutions?

At the time, we were starting in big data, and we didn’t have a lot of expertise in the area. We also had trouble hiring people, so my manager started looking at contractors.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We needed to augment our team and Coherent Solutions initially provided two resources for big data development. We were trying to adjust a lot of internet traffic data around particular inquiries using Python and traditional RDBMS technologies.

We thought that Hadoop and big data would present a better solution at the time, but we didn’t have the expertise or resources to actually implement our ideas. We got in contact with Coherent Solutions, and they gave us a couple of resources to help us adjust the data, process it, and make it available to our analysts. They also provided development QA.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with the same team on several projects, working with different sources and types of data. We started off with two resources from Coherent Solutions and later expanded to five. We had three developers and two QA testers.

One of the QAs also worked as a business analyst. He made sure that his team understood all the requirements, and acted as a liaison between the two teams. Everyone was involved in discussing the architecture and requirements, but he clarified any parts that required it, and also led the team as a scrum master.

How did you come to work with Coherent Solutions?

My manager looked at a few providers and chose them.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $1 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with them from May 2016–November 2017.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The measurement of success was really the measurement of success for the entire team. Coherent Solutions was working with our on-site team, acting as a single unit. We never had anything separate that we were tracking.

We discussed any issues in the latter part of the engagement, and they were keeping track of anything they identified on our side. We had some valuable discussions, but I don’t have any real KPIs to share.

How did Coherent Solutions perform from a project management standpoint?

The resources provided to us were really invested in the project and had a lot of passion. It wasn’t just a matter of us making decisions and having them do the implementation—they shared a lot of suggestions and opinions, and it felt like they were really interested in the success of our project, team, and company.

If they weren’t going to make our deadline for whatever reason, they always let us know in time. Not everything made it in time, but I wouldn’t say that any of that was really their fault. There were some specifications that we didn’t get from the business side in time or we didn’t make data available. They worked with us to ensure the project made it on time.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’d say it’s the quality of their people. They hired people who already came with a lot of knowledge, but they were also very good at picking up new stuff, doing proofs-of-concept and research into new tools and techniques. I felt they were actually getting trained regularly on new technology and ways of doing it. They were detailed from a design perspective. We had high levels of discussion, and they were very engaged. We felt they were very interested in the success of whatever we took on, and they worked very hard.

With them being in Belarus and us being in the US, it was important to look over how many hours they were putting in and making sure they were talking to the client, but it didn’t feel like they were beholden to the schedule. We contracted them for forty hours per week per each resource, but they didn’t limit themselves to exactly forty hours; they did whatever was necessary to get the project done and delivered on time.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t know if this is necessarily just them; it’s probably true for any offshore contracting in general. We started off with two people—one developer and one QA/BA—and, once we added three more resources and they were big enough to become their own team, it became a bit harder to make sure everyone was synced up between our side and theirs.

There was a lot of time overlap as well, and we made sure to accommodate for that, whether it was a call, a live meeting, an email, or a chat. They started work before us, and we weren’t always available to answer their questions and make some decisions.

Instead of being a blockage, they took the initiative wherever possible. However, making sure that all the decisions and information were communicated, to make sure both sides were in sync was challenging to a degree. We could’ve done better at this as well, and we’ve had a lot of discussions around efforts to make it better.

They were the contractors and we the customer, and they had a bit of a setback. It was my fault as well since I’d never worked with contractors before. The more I got them engaged and the more they understood what I was looking for, the more the quality improved, as did the pace.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

It’s important to have clear and effective communication both ways. We had better outputs from them when we had them engaged from the start as much as possible and made sure they were well-informed, from requirements gathering to business use cases. We expected the same from them for the things they were working on, not just giving them a module to build and getting the result back three weeks later.

We wanted to know what kind of decisions they were making to solve the problem, and we didn’t micromanage them, but rather took a genuine interest in how they solved problems for us. That way, when our on-site team takes over the module or parts of it, we wouldn’t be totally lost in the transition period and have to learn everything from scratch.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of a company that provides transparency and budgeting software to local governments and school districts. We have a web-based solution that allows these institutions to create and publish a budget on a convenient platform.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Coherent Solutions?

Coherent Solutions was hired as our primary development firm. They work overseas and have been building and maintaining our platform ever since.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They built the program and core technologies from scratch. Their team used SQL, Angular, and Node.js in the process. They also used open-source plugins in conjunction with these tools; we used a third-party plugin to build a chart and graph engine. Coherent Solutions continues to maintain these systems. Their team also provides support with PHP plugins, WordPress, and Google Analytics.

The project has two facets: one is a back-office solution for local governments and school districts. This is designed to have functionality for multiple people in a budget office. It also involves dozens of departments relating to the government finance sector. They can submit requests for their budget and there’s a workflow behind that (audit trail, document repositories, etc.). There is also a public-facing platform for users to look through available data.

What is the team composition?

We have a handful of developers on an ongoing basis. They occasionally bring in expertise from other teams to deal with other areas. There is also a project manager.

How did you come to work with Coherent Solutions?

They were recommended by a company that I’m familiar with.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working in 2015 and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We continue to be extremely pleased with their professionalism and ability to get things done. They’re a solid development team and have the ability to bring in resources beyond the team we’ve been assigned. They’ve been very helpful. Anything they build loads very quickly—our website is lightning-fast, which is impressive given the amount of data we have on a daily basis.

How did Coherent Solutions perform from a project management standpoint?

There’s a project manager that isn’t on our project full-time but keeps tabs on ongoing projects. The project manager also works on a high-level strategic standpoint, making sure we are consistent with the latest technologies. From a day-to-day basis, they self-manage within their team. We also have daily standups and scrum meetings.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The communication has been solid. In some offshore development work I’ve done, the communication has been a challenge, but not so with Coherent Solutions. Whatever we’ve asked them to build, they’ve been able to build it. Their work is always completed efficiently.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything. They do a great job and we’ve been happy with them.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

You should have clear requirements before the development cycle begins. We generally try to be very, very detailed, which helps drive success and efficiency on our side.