kambu

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm a Manager at HTA Consulting. The company pioneers in health technology assessment studies both in Poland and in Central and Eastern Europe. We also developed innovative IT tools – online services like ikarpro.eu and mobile apps.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire kambu, and what were your goals?

We want to develop IKAR pro from an internal tool into a fully-fledged Business Intelligence platform. The goal was to make it an even more attractive offer in the Polish medicine reimbursement market by expanding core functionalities and incorporating features requested by clients.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We chose kambu based on the good experience of one member of our team of working with this vendor before on other projects.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

IKAR pro platform is divided into Java applications and uses the Elasticsearch search engine. Kambu has accompanied us in the each step of reconstruction, development and implementation of the platform.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

We were able to follow the intended roadmap and expand a subscription model that gates some content to paying customers. Over the years IKAR has become a truly comprehensive tool. IKARpro has given us is the acceleration of search processes, perceiving us as reimbursement specialists, always having up-to-date and easy to search data. The success of the platform let us built an entire consulting and advisory department around IKAR to further increase our customer base.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

Kambu uses the Agile methodology. We assigned a Project Owner from our team and would meet periodically on meetings with clear expectations. We also used tools like Jira to communicate.

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

Kambu is more of a partner than just a contractor. Team is always ready to bring knowledge and suggestions to the project and is active during the implementation of the project. The cooperation takes place in a positive atmosphere, with people full of energy and openness to the client's needs.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

With tight deadlines, it is impossible to avoid some minor mistakes, but any bugs are quickly fixed.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a software company that develops and sells clinical ICT tools mainly to hospitals. I’ve been the managing director since 2014.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with kambu?

We partnered with kambu on a crowdfunded research and development project. We had proposed an app that we needed to build in order to perform research on patients with rheumatological diseases. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Along with kambu, we also partnered with a university hospital in Poland and a regional hospital in Norway. We started to build the proposal in the fall of 2019 after meeting with our other partners at kambu’s headquarters in Kraków.

There are five work packages for this project and the first one involves research. The second package covers the clinical ICT tool, which is where most of our and kambu’s work relates to. The work packages three and four are concentrated on what the actual researchers are doing in the hospital. Finally, package five is about building a national quality register, for which we will also work as a team with kambu. 

The project was postponed because of COVID-19, but when we finally started our activities, the first milestone was for kambu to translate the basic software to Polish. Our main focus up until now has been to coordinate the translation services so that we can implement the translation in our software. 

Since we offer the opportunity for patients to perform a self-assessment wherever they are, we have the software available in 22 languages. The software is available in English and Norwegian, and soon will be fully translated into Polish. 

The kambu team has also provided assistance with hospital installations. They’ve created a project website for the university hospital as well. 

What is the team composition?

I’ve been in contact with three people from their team. 

How did you come to work with kambu?

They were already invited when we had a prep meeting with the hospitals. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’re not paying them. We have our own budget for the project and they have theirs. Our budget is around €220,000 (approximately $248,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We wrote the proposal in the fall of 2019 and the project was granted around March–April 2020. There was a bit of a delay due to COVID-19, and we did not formally start working until January 2021. The project is now ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’re now working on a release for the Polish market that will feature kambu’s translations. This will give us four more hospital installations in the country, and it will all be done in early 2022. The key thing is that our software, with its Polish translation, will serve as the basis for our other project activities. This part is very important for the entire project.

How did kambu perform from a project management standpoint?

The kambu team has been efficient up until now. They know the field well, have met all of our requirements and deadlines, and have performed according to the work description on the proposal. We share files with each other, and there’s also a coordinator assigned on both ends.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have the right competence and attitude for building long-term partnerships.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there’s nothing I could mention at the current stage.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

The company I’ve recommended kambu to is really happy with their services. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend them again. They do a decent job and are reliable and competent.

If you want a successful relationship with a partner, you have to be open and clear with all your requirements from the start. Share what you expect the outcome to be and follow the project closely. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We make small connected UV Sensors to inform people about their UV Exposure. I am CEO now, and was project lead during the project.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire kambu, and what were your goals?

Our app was outdated and lacking maintenance. We introduced a new generation of hardware that needed to be connected to our app (both iOS and Android), and, of course, we had a long list of wishes for improvement.

SOLUTION

How did you select kambu and what were the deciding factors?

One of our project participants had already worked with Kambu and gave positive feedback. We set up an introduction meeting and asked for initial feedback on our ideas, plans, budget and timelines. Based on the feedback of Kambu we decided to choose for them.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

Initial phase:

•  Analyzing existing app and back-end
•  Making roadmap for need to and nice to have improvements
•  Estimating time and cost on high level For this we gave Kambu full acces to what we had. Code, App, Bug-lists, etc.

 Also we had several (short) meetings to explain things Phase 2:

•  Bug fixing / fixing the most critical
•  Kambu started working on fixing the most critical things
•  We set up a meeting structure, to inform us and give feedback
•  We created capacity to test / react fast

 Phase 3: Look and feel 

• Kambu and our team work together on updating the design (look and feel, font, placement, flows, ect) 
• We meet more often and test many options / versions
• We continue bug fixing
• This resulted in a base app in the new look and feel that worked on both iOS as Android

Phase 4: Connecting the new hardware

•  After some delays the new hardware was available. 
• This resulted in some connectivity issues that needed to be tackled. 
• Kambu really stretched themselves to solve these

How many people from the kambu team worked with you, and what were their positions?

- projectmanager - iOS developer - Android developer - Back End developr - Designer

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

We managed to stay in budget and delivered on time. Of course we had to make some tough decisions and there are still things we want to improve.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

Kambu prefers high frequency short meetings and use a channel like Slack for quick in between questions. All is documented in Jira and when needed we just picked up the phone. This was all in the mid of Covid. So we also had to work through lock-downs, vacination and limitations. We were open to them, they were open to us, and we managed to work together in a good way.

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

They are flexible and in general just nice people to work with. At some point we had to slow down a bit because of budget challenges on our end. In an open conversation we managed to come to a good solution.

And when you hear that developers are walking around with our UV sensor in the weekend to collect some extra data-points than that says something about commitment. Their good work, clear planning, and execution process were impressive in the workflow.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Of course we encountered some bugs and things happen, but they were quick to act and solve issues.