Formula.Monks

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am a former department director at AT&T

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Large multinational telecommunications company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Formula.Monks to accomplish?

• Innovation and Design Thinking
• Software Engineering and Product Delivery
• Dev-Ops, SRE, scale, adapt, and improve solution

SOLUTION

How did you find Formula.Monks?

Referral

Why did you select Formula.Monks over others?

• High ratings
• Great culture fit
• Referred to me
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Formula.Monks were assigned to this project?

25

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Develop an open and secure Platform, first to store IoT device data in the cloud, then to scale and adapt into an end-to-end connected device solutions on a global scale. Quick rapid prototype, using agile, and public/private cloud, adapt into working mission critical highly available solution.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Positive media coverage for corporate and IoT business unit, Industry awards, 25,000+ registered users, thousands of active users, 100,000+ active devices, all drove direct and indirect new revenue for the company.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Highly effective project and program management, Everything was on-time, very flexible, ramped up additional staff to meet dead-lines, ramped up extra hours at the last minute, and extra staff during product launches 24x7 to make sure everything went smooth. Great partner from day zero.

What was your primary form of communication with Formula.Monks?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

They cared about the work, and it was clear with everyone involved my problems were their problems, we also liked the squad based approach to staffing and solving problems, use of agile, and sprints, impacted positively the project, but eventually we used this as a internal corporate example of how Agile Development can be successful for software and product development.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Formula.Monks could have done differently?

No, great partner,I have used them again on other projects, and at other companies.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Sr. product Manager of NWEA

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We are an education technology and research organization whose flagship product measures how students in k-12 schools grow in their learning.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Formula.Monks to accomplish?

• Discover and define a new product solution aligned to market need and organizational strategy
• Discover and develop a tool that would enable our organization to validate that the product hypothesis was valid and efficacious
• Deliver an MVP version of the identified product solution to market

SOLUTION

How did you find Formula.Monks?

Referral

Why did you select Formula.Monks over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Formula.Monks were assigned to this project?

~15

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

The primary phase of work delivered was to enable us to validate our product hypothesis. The deliverables listed below provide more detail on this phase of work.

Lab Platform Delivery - the existing Lab Platform application will evolve into a scalable, integrated platform that can test rich and engaging interactions with students and gather meaningful data for our researchers. The work on the Lab Platform is expected to proceed along the following lines:

Items & Content: enable content creators to test new interaction types by creating scalable content management architecture to support new and enhanced data items. Researcher App: scale the researcher app so that different internal teams can leverage it for their needs.Content Presenter: enhance the student experience that is both inclusive and accessible to all students. Architecture: integrate the Lab Platform into our current systems where appropriate.

Lab Platform Discovery - investigating the commercialization opportunity to offer the platform to third party researchers and evaluation of various business scenarios in order to identify the most suitable path forward to secure a revenue stream.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The team delivered the enabling product and technology that validated our product hypothesis. The team built an interoperable tool that supported our business-to-business strategy and aligned to industry standards. The team delivered foundational technology, architecture, designs, user experiences, and roadmaps necessary to complete this work.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Every deliverable for 2 years was handed over on-time and on-budget. The work-back plans were accurate and the team acted as true partners to help us execute our vision.

What was your primary form of communication with Formula.Monks?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

I have worked with many engineers, designers, strategists, product managers, project managers, and architects to take several new products from the idea phase to delivery. This team has been far and away the most high-quality team of people I have ever had the pleasure to work with. They challenged assumptions that needed to be challenged, identified problems and solved them before they became problems, and acted as true thought-partners with us. We treated this group as though they were normal co-workers with a shared vision, and because of that, I had one of the best product-creation experiences I've had in my career.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Formula.Monks could have done differently?

My only note is that there were times when the team seemed to be pressuring us to extend our relationship with them. While we sometimes took advantage of these opportunities, and I understand the nature of this type of relationship is to expand working opportunities where it is logical, sometimes it felt distracting for me as the project sponsor, though never disruptive of my work or the team's work.