Kellton Tech Solutions

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

The product that Kellton Tech helped us develop has won four awards. We had some issues with quality, which is a reason the team size increased. We realized we needed some quality assurance from their team. Once that was in place, we saw the quality improve. However, the delivery times were longer because the QA had to be implemented on their side before we saw it.

How did Kellton Tech Solutions perform from a project management standpoint?

Initially, we didn’t have a project manager on the team, and we realized fairly quickly that we needed one. The project manager did a good job of managing their team.

During the project, our internal team had resource issues, meaning we couldn’t feed the right level of details to the Kellton Tech team. Since there were these issues with resourcing and design input from our side, they were kept waiting. Consequently, the implementation didn’t happen as quickly as it should have. Or, if it happened it wasn’t as we needed it because we hadn’t defined it clearly enough.

What did you find most impressive about them?

This is the first time I have worked with a partner in this area, so I don’t have a reference to compare them against.

One really positive aspect of the project has been their commitment. During the first phase of the project, which was a really intense period of development with a hard deadline, they worked more hours than I would have liked. They worked very hard and long days to complete it, and that was really appreciated.

In the end, we were a couple of weeks late, but had they not put in that effort, we would have been a couple of months late. We made changes in phase two to ensure they didn’t have to work in that way again.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Quality is the main thing they could improve. Unfortunately, we haven’t had the resources to back up the work they’ve done. 

Ordinarily, I would expect to do our own quality checks, but because of the time pressure of this project, we’ve had no opportunity to do that. So, we’re in an unpleasant situation of not knowing the code as the system is built out.

As a result, we’ve become aware that the code isn’t ideally structured. For example, we’ve seen evidence of sections of code being reproduced elsewhere rather than being reused. If we were to run the project again with more resources, we would have spent a lot more time reviewing the code quality. 

Also, their developers seem to be a little quick to mark a task as complete. Rather than doing their own testing and reaching a point where they’re confident in the code, they send it to QA right away. Within a few minutes, QA finds a problem and sends it back to the developer. This leads to longer development times. 

I asked the project manager and management team to encourage their team to take responsibility for their own development rather than developing something quickly, handing it off, and moving on. They should pay close attention, make sure it’s working correctly, and then hand it over for QA testing.

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

We are on what is called a fixed-fee month model where we pay them a fixed fee based on the days they work, based on hours. We manage the sum total of the deliveries, so we don’t hold them accountable to come back and say, “This is the metric you have to stick to.” This is more on a build-operate-transfer [BOT] model, so their people act as our employees. We set the expectations, but we don’t have quantitative measures.

We are working with a large construction company that is a Google partner. Their feedback on the development that has happened has been very good. People have been very happy. They’ve been very responsive. One piece feedback we get is that they are extraordinarily productive and respond to our needs very well.

How did Kellton Tech perform from a project management standpoint?

We actually literally treat them as an extension of our staff. For that reason, we don’t manage by objective, where you must adhere to “this” to get “this”. We think that’s old-school management; the new school is more about quality and delivery, so we are motivating them. They are involved in all of our discussions. They understand what we are doing. They’ve become a trusted partner.

What did you find most impressive about Kellton Tech?

They keep the culture of the company very sound. People tend to stay there a lot longer than many of the other companies I used to deal with.

Are there any areas Kellton Tech could improve?

While they hit all the internal targets that we set in terms of schedule, we always concentrate on the quality issues. We train them on how to test and how to build. We actually take them as an extension of our staff and train them.

That’s an area where perhaps they can run some non-standard account management. Today, account management is all about, “hey, are they doing well and how can we sell more?” I think their account management has to shift to, “are they doing well and how can we do to even do better?” To that extent, I must also admit that they have started doing some audits, which were very helpful. They came back and asked me the kind of questions that you are asking, which is very good and very proactive. I met the CEO and he’s a very dynamic young leader. I think he’s going to take them in the right direction, so I don’t see any issues.

They learn fast, and their productivity is incredible. When you have very high productivity, you do compromise some quality. For quality, I am sure they need to do some homework, but I have no cost complaints.