Fuzz

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

Fuzz definitely completed the project on time, even though there were some curveballs from our end. They held their end of the bargain and delivered as they said they would. We are pretty early in terms of the user engagement on our platforms, so I don’t really have any meaningful statistics there. Fuzz gave us all the tools and backend training needed to sufficiently manage the site without their help. The environment they created for us is quite robust.

How did Fuzz perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicated mostly through UberConference calls, emails, and in-person meetings. Our offices are in Chelsea and theirs are in Williamsburg, so we did a lot of in-person work with them. We’ve also had discussions using Slack and created a channel moving forward. The key thing was we had full-day teardowns of the project. Each time a major portion got started, we aligned our expectations with the engineering team. From the beginning, they were very exhaustive in terms of their methodology. They asked questions and got into the core of what we were looking for.

What did you find most impressive about Fuzz?

They are very flexible with last-minute adjustments or very iterative designing sprints. They are very receptive to feedback and act on it quickly. Having a very clear and open communication channel was the best part about working with Fuzz. Even now that we’ve been done with our project for four months, we still have biweekly calls for status updates. We’ve also done preliminary planning for phase two of the project. Having the project manager and the whole team at our disposal was helpful, and it set them apart from other firms that tend to isolate. I loved working with the different teams. We were assigned a lead engineer who worked specifically on our project. We had direct access to him and could ask questions anytime. Their transparency about their structure and work process was really helpful. That provided an easy environment to work with, for sure. Overall, they have just been great with communication; that’s the key thing for me here.

Are there any areas Fuzz could improve?

I’m a bit jaded coming from the startup world. They were a bit expensive but they delivered above and beyond what we asked them to. They were worth every penny. I’m not used to the agency model and what it costs to put these kinds of projects together, so I was a little shocked by how expensive it was. Outside of that, I wouldn’t say they were overly expensive, but the price was definitely premium.

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

Respondent 2: I don't have any exact stats, but the Android downloads exceeded what we originally anticipated, surpassing iOS. We thought that the app would be iOS-centric.

There weren't many complaints on the Help section. Here and there, there were some things that came up but they were not Android-specific issues, such as one person’s issue not getting through the “age-gate.” That’s not an issue with the app—that’s present in all apps related to this one. We’ll have to see, but so far there have not been any problems.

How did Fuzz perform from a project management standpoint?

Respondent 2: Communication was mostly done through our JIRA instance; most members of Fuzz's team were given access to it. HipChat was used to communicate on-the-fly around tasks and bugs. We set up a weekly call with Fuzz in order to work out details. I was in direct contact with their project manager, whom I could call for any issues.

We were given weekly builds which we could check. The frequency increased towards the end, with daily builds which went through Fuzz's QA, as well as our own.

There was a lot of back-and-forth around how native Android elements should be approached, and we had some disagreements with Fuzz on this topic.

The developers from Fuzz worked almost exclusively out of their office, but they did visit us on-site once or twice, for an initial scope meeting, as well as for a UI/business requirements review which we put together and discussed with the team when we identified some misunderstandings. We described every screen of the site and how it would be translated into the app, offering a clearer picture of what the product would be at the end.

What did you find most impressive about Fuzz?

Respondent 2: Fuzz was responsive in terms of discussing requests, but we have had some back-and-forth around what the app's requirements were. Some elements were fluctuating on-the-fly.

Are there any areas Fuzz could improve?

Respondent 2: Now that we're working on phase two, our developers have been reviewing Fuzz's code. There's been some trouble managing the code base, so if we had to do it all over again, we would ask Fuzz to make more ample documentation, in order to make it easier for us to maintain the app and add features to it. Other than this, I don't have any negative feedback for Fuzz.

Respondent 1: It was the typical miscommunication which comes at no direct fault of any one party. There were some assumptions made which were looked over, but there's nothing that would keep us from working with Fuzz in the future.

How happy are you with the results of the project?

We are very happy.

When working with Fuzz Productions, was there anything unique about them compared to other companies or developers you may have worked with?

What really filled the bill for them is that someone who had previously worked at our company went to work there. So we knew what we were going to get as far as customer service.

Is there any area that you think Fuzz Productions could improve?

I don’t think so.