December Labs

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

The only metric we were tracking was project length, and they exceeded our expectations.

We haven’t launched yet, but I can say that their design skills are great. The user interface they created is beautiful and easy to use.

They pay attention to detail, try to understand the problem, and come up with solutions instead of just meeting requirements. December Labs thinks through what you tell them to do and suggests alternatives when they are better for the project. Most of the time, they were able to identify and solve problems before I ever mentioned them.

How did December Labs perform from a project management standpoint?

They gave us updates every two weeks on changes in the build, project progress, what work remained, where the project was in relation to the established timeline, and the expected end. In addition to these updates, we had daily communication through Slack.

What did you find most impressive about them?

December Labs was familiar with the agile management methodology, which enabled them to adapt to changes in the app and overall project needs. I appreciated that they didn’t need much detailed guidance. They knew our API, and whatever they weren’t familiar with, they would find out. We didn’t have to invest a lot of our own project management or development time to support their development.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Not really, I was impressed with their work.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I think December Labs works better when they are given an entire project versus working as part of a team mixed with their developers and their customers’ development teams. It requires trusting them, but it’s worth it.

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

All of our customers have been happy. A few of them have even come back for ongoing work when they needed support or upgrades. Almost all of our clients have signed some kind of limited support contract after the initial development. I think that this is a good sign since if they were truly unhappy, they would not want us to handle further work. After the initial build, there might not be a phase 2 for whatever reason. However, we’ve almost always continued the engagements after the initial development.

How did DecemberLabs perform from a project management standpoint?

Because I’m just a one-man operation, the project management depends on how involved the client wants to be. If they want visibility into what’s being built, they can create user stories that I would manage. Generally speaking, I’ve written specs up front. This basic use case specification document serves as DecemberLabs’ blueprint. After that, we agree on milestones, breaking up the overall project into components like user interface and coding. The customer knows exactly what they’re getting each week. Payments are also milestone-based. If the client is unhappy, we don’t get paid. I can give them milestones and a high-level plan of what needs to get built, and DecemberLabs will deliver to order.

The collaboration has never involved more than 4–5 people, even with the customer involved. That helps keep things efficient. I’ve given the engineers a lot of latitude in terms of how they should go about building and estimating work. As I’ve said before, I don’t believe in order-takers or in giving a 50-page spec to engineers and having them ignore functionalities because they weren’t included. I much prefer giving raw outlines of what needs to be built, saying that something needs to be done by a certain date and expecting it to get done. This has worked well over the last 2 years.

What did you find most impressive about DecemberLabs?

They're conscientious about deadlines, provide top-quality work, and think about problems and the best ways to solve them. Another advantage is that DecemberLabs is in the US time zone. People don’t realize how much this matters, but overlapping is much better than having a 24-hour cycle of waiting for a Ukrainian or Romanian dev shop to start dealing with issues.

Are there any areas DecemberLabs could improve?

No. They’re a quality outfit overall.