Dragon Army

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the senior director of brand and consumer marketing for United Way of Greater Atlanta.

What challenge were you trying to address with Dragon Army?

We were trying to get into the mobile space to have year-round engagement. We wanted to create a new entry point for our current donors and potential donors to interact with us. We needed a completely outsourced development team.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We scoped together to create a beta version of an iOS mobile app from the ground up. They communicated what they would need from us and what they could do autonomously. Then, they relayed to us the different phases of their process from discovery, review, developing business objectives, production, reviewing processes, submission, and finally, to revision.

During our first phase, they ran into trouble with the type of inventory that our organization provides. However, they were able to create some revisions to use all tools we had available. Dragon Army configured our app to connect with over 300 different organizations and created a way to easily find volunteer opportunities. It's quite a complex application, but they made it a seamless experience for the consumer. They also created keymaps that are organized by counties, so volunteers can identify what's going on in their own county.

We are currently going to start the second phase of the project which will focus on mobile strategy.

What is the team composition?

They provide us with an account executive who leads our day-to-day, an account director who directs the scope and budget, and we have one more project manager who keeps us on deadlines. We also work with their creative and production teams.

How did you come to work with Dragon Army?

Dragon Army’s owner oversees another organization that gathers volunteers with IT skills. Our CMO knew him through this program. We knew they had a pretty good reputation throughout the Atlanta area because they worked with one of my former marketing agencies before.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started our engagement in November 2015 and it is ongoing.

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

It’s difficult to list any quantitative metrics, because of the timing of the app's launch. However, the few users that have reviewed the app so far say that it has great UX/UI and they love the design; they all say that it’s easy to use.

How did Dragon Army perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicate through email, phone calls, status charts, and weekly/biweekly meetings—more frequently nearing launch. They've been great to work with, and we have a very open and transparent working relationship. Dragon Army always meets timelines.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their knowledge in the mobile space is impressive. It’s our first time going into the mobile field, and they are very honest in terms of the type of product we need. Instead of trying to oversell, they know exactly what services or products we need. They are really a partner of ours and know what they’re talking about. They know how to manage clients, how to manage expectations, and they're willing to go above and beyond to create a successful product.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure you understand the scope of the work. Understand the project brief for the entire project and the objective you’re trying to accomplish.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the Senior Director of Product Management at American Cancer Society.

What challenge were you trying to address with Dragon Army?

We needed to radically redesign our mobile app, but we lacked the in-house UI and UX experience. We were somewhat knowledgeable, but we didn’t have a deep understanding of mobile users' needs or mobile design skills.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They redid the entire app, which is used to raise money for the American Cancer Society. They played a heavy part in understanding our user base and making the app cater to their lack of broad technical aptitude.

They delivered a series of different wireframes and UXs that they thought would translate well to our mobile app, and we reviewed those wireframes internally, providing feedback they would then integrate and kick back to us. Once those wireframes were approved, we started on the design. They provided us with a series of options and we made the final choice. Everything was delivered through GitHub.

The best thing they did was redesign our payment options within the app. We provide 10 different ways for people to donate money, whether it be posting to Facebook or sending an SMS message; we also accept Apple Pay, Android Pay, PayPal, and can scan checks and credit cards. All of these processes have their own flow, which Dragon Army created. They effectively identified pain points within each of those payment methods and came up with a series of UX and design solutions to make them as easy to use as possible. They even worked through the limitations that collecting certain types of data cast over each process.  

They continue to do maintenance for us and they're building a Facebook chatbot as well, which is completely separate from what they’ve worked on in the past. They’ve also done some web redesign for us, with regards to mobile registration and how consumers register for events. They might start working on a few Amazon Alexa integrations as well.

What is the team composition?

We have a great account manager and account director, but we mostly worked with their UX designer and art director. Our team of five to seven people also included some strategy people.

How did you come to work with Dragon Army?

Someone I knew recommended them to me.

How much have you invested in them?

We’ve spent well over $200,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working with them since March 2016.

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

We increased app revenue from 2016 to 2017 by over 50%, and a large percentage of that was because of the new app and Dragon Army’s work. Their efforts are even more attributable to app engagement and the time users spend on the app per session. The app has been received very well too.

How did Dragon Army perform from a project management standpoint?

In the beginning, they helped us scope the project and develop a very detailed timeline. When we were in the middle of a project, our project manager and account director would let us know where we were with weekly reports on the hours they worked, any milestones that were reached, and any red flags that came up. They do a really good job of keeping us informed and letting us know if there’s anything we need to be aware of such as cost overruns or technical challenges. They also participated in our daily stand-ups for the first six months.

They’ve gone above and beyond what I would say a normal agency does with regards to deliverables and the quality of deliverables. There’ve been a couple times where they proactively informed us that, even though something was due, they didn’t feel comfortable with the quality, so they were going to take extra time to deliver something that met both our standards. They didn’t charge us for that, and they’ve been very transparent with us. They also worked well with our own resources such as developers, QA people, and offshore help in India.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The depth and breadth of their staff with regards to the types of verticals they have expertise in is impressive. When we have projects that need specific expertise, they always seem to have someone who has experience in those areas. We’re happy with that, as well as the level of quality. If anything, they over-communicate, which not every agency does. They’ve consistently delivered quality products from the very beginning, which also doesn’t happen with other agencies. They’ve taken the extra step to understand what makes us unique and provide solutions that reflect that. I don’t view them as just a mobile design agency, or just a mobile development shop; they do a whole bunch more for us than that.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We’re happy with them.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work for a large consumer packaged goods company. I manage a team called Enterprise Solutions which is part of our global shared services organization. We provide all of the global digital signage needs for the company. We also provide all of the enterprise video streaming capability as well as consumer. We manage all of the company’s mobile app deployment and we have an area that focuses on enterprise product management which includes both web and mobile products - both enterprise facing as well as consumer facing.

What challenge were you trying to address with Dragon Army?

We were in the process of building a mobile application. It’s a front door for our IT and HR [human resources] services, which today are fragmented. This means that behind the scenes, the service requests are fulfilled by different teams and different technology platforms, thus preventing the optimal user experience. We decided that we wanted to build a mobile app which would abstract users from the confusion of knowing where to go to get the appropriate support they need. We worked with Dragon Army to conceptualize and build that mobile application. Subsequent to that, we’ve worked with them on other things. That was the genesis of the working relationship.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They helped us with our internal facing app by building both native iOS and Android applications which were deployed to our company enterprise app store. They’ve worked with us to develop a framework that allows us to easily update the application. The app supports our production and distribution side. They built the application in a way that’s scalable as well as easy to manage. So as the organization changes or different teams are rearranged on the backend, we can easily push out updates. They also built a framework that allows us to add multi-lingual support in the future. That’s stuff that will be later released, but all of that was built into the first version.

How did you come to work with Dragon Army?

My team partners heavily with IT, but we also work with a small select group of partner agencies. My team consists of business analysts, product, and project managers. So we don’t actually staff developers within the team itself. Those folks deal with our internal clients as well as the partner agencies. When we were beginning this work, we were connected to Dragon Army through IT. They came in as a referral through them, although I do have some personal history with some members of the team. Prior to Dragon Army’s current incarnation, they acquired Proving Grounds, who we already had a working relationship with in the mobile space. They did a blackberry application for us many years ago. Because of this prior relationship, it was good fortune that IT blessed the engagement with them. Typically, IT keeps tight reigns on who we can partner with on the agency side.

How much have you invested with Dragon Army?

The first project was $50,000 to $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Since the completion of this project, Dragon Army has become one of the vendors that my department uses for fulfilment of mobile projects.

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

They were quick to deliver, even though we’re a little slow to deploy. They finished on time. We’ve gone through multiple rounds of review and stakeholder feedback. We actually have not officially launched. We’ve set that for within the next two weeks [Sept. 2016] which is long overdue. We’ve gone through multiple revisions and we’ve gone back to them several times, although it was nothing they did. As the program has grown, we’ve had to iterate before we get the first version out the door. The mobile app itself spawned a much larger program. Now we’ve broadened the scope of the program to include desktop as well.

How did Dragon Army perform from a project management standpoint?

Superb. They gave regular updates. There wasn’t a time that I felt in the dark. The lines of communication were open.

What did you find most impressive about Dragon Army?

Their team is very understanding of the business need and is able to provide very good insight. They feel like an extension of the team. The quality of work is extraordinarily high. It’s on par or better than other agencies we’ve worked with in the past. It’s top notch, overall. Their aptitude for technology is really on the leading edge. They seem to be very well versed in all the emerging trends and technologies, which they’re able to bring to us as insight and help inform better decisions.

Sometimes it can be a tough pill to swallow to work with such a large corporation. We tend to railroad agencies into the ground. These guys have handled it well.

Are there any areas Dragon Army could improve?

I would struggle to find anything. I think the only hiccup we’ve had was in one case where we had a project manager change over and there was a little speed bump as we made that transition. That’s just something that happens.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work at a large hotel corporation. I am the Director of Business Travel Experience. I am in charge of engineering the products and experiences at our hotels, as well as managing our loyalty programs and everything else that involves a hotel guest. We’re responsible for coming up with what those products and programs should be and how we want to interface with business travelers. Everything we do is based on advanced analytics. The first half of my day is always spent doing the math and crunching data, and then the second half is spent doing product service and experience design, a good bit of which is done through digital channels like mobile apps.

What challenge were you trying to address with Dragon Army?

Dragon Army has helped us on two products. They’ve helped us with internal tools and strategy around how to take the experience that we want to engineer and make it work in a digital space. They’ve also coauthored a white paper with us because of the thought leadership they have behind game science and game theory, which is a foundational piece of everything that they do. That’s the main reason we brought them in.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We have an element of in-house development work. We used Dragon Army for the strategy side on the UX [user experience] piece of things, which has been broader than just mobile. I have this passion for having some form of game science embedded in the experience that we create because I think it's a differentiated and more enjoyable experience for the end user. It also allows us to capture a lot of great data around incentives about what’s working what’s not.

How did you come to work with Dragon Army?

The Chief Executive Officer and I had connected at a lot of venues. It wasn’t immediate that we had a need to form a business partnership, but as new digital ideas were coming online, I started to lean on him to help us understand the game science piece of what they do. Slowly, we built a relationship and now, when we do anything digital. I go to them first. I would say most of the time they can do the full project for us. We go to them because they have such a great perspective on the necessary fundamentals beneath whatever the UX is doing. They weren’t up against other agencies.

How much have you invested with Dragon Army?

We’ve done just under $100,000 with them.

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

From a qualitative side, they’ve brought the unique perspective of the game science. They’re extremely fast and easy to work with. They are also very quick on helping things through design constraint and editing so that you don’t lose the idea of the project. They have helped us with user testing which they do in unique ways by leveraging the game science behind it. They’re 50% a game studio and 50% a digital agency. When those two departments come together, you get the best of both worlds especially since they’re so focused on the mobile piece. They’ve been able to bring a very niche expertise that we couldn’t find at other digital agencies.

How did Dragon Army perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re good at status updates, which is fantastic.

What did you find most impressive about Dragon Army?

They offer something unique around digital and mobile platforms. I have not bumped into anybody that can deliver both the theory behind the game and the best way to make it happen in the UX setting.

They have a fantastic blend of design and the human-centric side of stuff. They have strong developers that know how to do things in the leanest way possible. When we’re doing a prototype, we need it done quickly, but we need to rely on interfaces with a platform or system that’s behind the firewall. They can figure out ways to keep things secure and private while not having to construct a big IT project on our side. They’re good at coming up with creative ways to solve technical issues and they have great strategists. Dragon Army is helpful because they explain how we can excel by pointing at things that we shouldn’t do.

Are there any areas Dragon Army could improve?

Other design agencies we’ve worked with are pretty good at scheduling times to sit down and make sure we’re getting through enough tasks. I wish they would do more of working through the iterations with us so that we know what they’ve taught us and what we’ve learned.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the Chief Marketing Officer for United Way of Greater Atlanta.

What challenge were you trying to address with Dragon Army?

We used Dragon Army to help us build an app.

What was the scope of their involvement?

With Dragon Army, we worked at establishing direct relationships outside the workplace with donors, prospective donors, volunteers, and prospective volunteers through engagement. The purpose of this app is to appeal to a younger group of people who tend to live their lives on their phones, but who are also very motivated by volunteer opportunities and are very inclined to dedicate themselves to organizations that allow them to engage in a deep way. The app is an opportunity to provide these people with in-depth information on the areas that United Way works in, and also to serve up the myriad of volunteer opportunities we can offer with our dozens of partner non-profit agencies. Dragon Army worked closely with our creative team who provided all of the direction on the brand look and feel. Dragon Army did everything else.

Initially, we're designing the app for iPhone, and then we'll expand from there. The app isn't fully developed yet. We're doing what they call a minimum viable product. We are very much in test-and-learn mode.

How did you come to work with Dragon Army?

I have known the work of Dragon Army since they started as a company. I know that their understanding and commitment to non-profits is pretty unique. Dragon Army had already proven their ability through various references I received in terms of their work. Since I already had first-hand knowledge of their capabilities, it was not a triple bid situation. We always knew that if we were going to build an app at all, we were going to do it with Dragon Army.

How much have you invested with Dragon Army?

The project cost is between $50,000 and $200,000. We expect it to grow.

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

We have not yet launched the app, but one of our deliverables, which we're a little bit behind on, is populating all of the volunteer opportunities across 13 countries over 12 months.

What did you find most impressive about Dragon Army?

Dragon Army is very strategic and their customer service is really unbelievable. I don't think we deserve the level of service we're getting because they're so responsive and they're so flexible. They are very buttoned up and put us to shame in terms of delivering everything on time. We aspire to be as buttoned up as they are.

Are there any areas Dragon Army could improve?

Nothing comes to mind right now.