Made in Tandem

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work at a software-defined radio company that makes embeddable modules, software stacks, and end-user products. I’m responsible for RF detection solutions. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Tandem? 

We were developing a solution to detect wireless intrusions for high-security customers. We needed assistance in developing the software controller application more quickly. We also wanted help with the design. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We provided them previous prototypes that our in-house team made, and they developed the client-end server. They provided us with several iterations of the design, which we tested with customers to get feedback that we passed back to their team. They used Java, among other programs. 

What is the team composition? 

We worked with a team of six people. 

How did you come to work with Tandem?

I worked with them on past engagements at different companies. We found that they were the best fit for this project after looking at their previous work and meeting with them to discuss their expertise. 

How much have you invested with them? 

We spent about $450,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with them in November 2019, and we expect to be done at the end of April 2020. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It was important that they could deliver to our customers who are in the federal government space. Working in partnership with our security consultant, they were able to develop a solution that has a high degree of security compliance. 

Additionally, being able to share feedback from customers on their mockups helped ensure the success of the product. 

How did Tandem perform from a project management standpoint?

They used two-week sprints and an agile methodology. The tools they used were mature and reliable. We always knew what was going on, and what their plans were for each sprint. There was good visibility throughout the project, and their execution was excellent. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I appreciated their ability to execute against a very mature software development and project planning methodology. We learned a lot from them which helped our in-house team. 

Their design skills exceeded our expectations. We had access to market-leading expertise, and that was extremely valuable. 

Are there any areas they could improve? 

I can’t think of anything along the way that they weren’t able to mitigate during the engagement. If any issues came up, they were quickly resolved. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

It’s important to be clear about what you want. I recommend taking advantage of their design services and project management skills. It was also helpful to partner them with our in-house team to ensure continuity once the engagement is over. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the chief commercial officer at Tollos.  We're supporting patients who have mobility issues. We make a series of medical devices that relate to mobility and assist clinicians and caregivers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Tandem?

We have a solid product and we were looking to develop a platform so that we could offer our customers modular extensions.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Tandem used an assessment methodology, part of which was understanding the marketplace. First, they interviewed a tremendous number of customers, including traditional clinicians and IT administration risk managers to get a better idea of how the product will be used. After that, they started the development process. We wanted to develop a data component of the product that would fit into the platform model and allow for expansion. We provided a sample motor and Tandem created the wireframes. They also set up a sample of the demo product in their office, which allowed them to test it.

What is the team composition? 

Their entire team is engaged in the process, so we have 6–8 members of their team take part in almost every discussion.

How did you come to work with Tandem?

One of our employees recommended Tandem. Our CEO initiated the conversation and we met with them. We decided they were a perfect match, so we chose them. 

How much have you invested with them?

It'll be a multi-million-dollar project by the time it'll be finished. 

What is the status of this engagement? 

We started working with them in spring 2018 and the relationship is ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were impressed with the thoroughness of their assessment. They're very proactive and readily explored new avenues. They've always been very attentive to our needs.

How did Tandem perform from a project management standpoint? 

We have a call every Friday and we use Slack to keep in touch. We've also met them in their Chicago office. They're very accessible, so we haven’t had any issues with communication. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Tandem has established a very collaborative environment. They're highly creative, but they also listen to us. They were genuinely interested in the goals of the project. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can't think of anything.  We were able to talk openly about what we would do differently, so we restructured our communication strategy to make the process more effective. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the manager of technical architecture at a large company that deals in the space of mission-critical communications and technologies. My team uses field-led as opposed to product-led solutions.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Tandem?

Our technical competencies don’t always align with customer requirements. In those instances, Tandem builds supplementary apps to meet specific technology requirements or fill other gaps in solutions.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’re currently in development and have completed some delivery and design phases. From a process standpoint, they use Agile methodology to incorporate senior management in defining requirements and scope. Tandem also employs discovery phases before starting a minimum viable product [MVP]. We’ll be moving into the build and deploy phases next. They’re also optimizing our core business and management tools, and building new automation processes for our delivery teams. The collaboration focuses on building customer-based solutions but also emphasizes return on investment.

What is the team composition?

We've worked with at least 10 members. The team includes a strategic alliance partner, operations specialist, UI designers, developers, a lead engineer, and project manager.

How did you come to work with Tandem?

They were referred to us. I then interviewed the CEO and some of the team members to see if they could help us meet our objectives.

What is the status of this engagement?

Work started in February 2017 and it is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They’ve proven themselves with their methodologies that fill gaps by finding repeated patterns. Their processes are high quality and the team is very collaborative. There isn't measurable data yet because we haven’t moved out of discovery; a couple solutions are in conceptional phases.

How did Tandem perform from a project management standpoint?

The team is very responsive and responsible. They’re flexible and show patience when coordinating with our subject matter experts across multiple time zones.

Tandem takes a diligent approach leading discovery sessions, reviewing slide decks with me before the meetings. The team’s very patient when educating our stakeholders on their process. They prioritize discovery phases in an industry where instantaneous MVP building is trending.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We’re too early in development to have any substantive feedback. So far, the experience has been a learning curve on our side.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Don’t get in their way; do everything possible to set them up for success.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the Chief Marketing Officer for OTB Destination, a mall developer based in Scottsdale, Ariz. I work closely with large retailers at our centers, bridging the gap in a typical landlord-tenant relationship. I'm also trying to help retailers grapple with behavioral changes of shoppers in both online and brick and mortar shops.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Tandem?

Our original mobile app was built on Parse, a platform that has since been discontinued. We needed to rebuild and improve upon the app within a new platform.

Other major mall developers have developed apps, but they weren't offering the same functionalities we envisioned for ours—it was going to be an industry first.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Tandem rebuilt our original app for both iOS and Android, working alongside our team to make iterations and add new features as requested. We provided their team with an idea of our goals and collaborated on a strategy of how the app would evolve.

What is the team composition?

We generally work with a chief technology officer and 1-2 designers. Depending on the stage of the project, we've had up to 10 people working on the job at a time.

How did you come to work with Tandem?

The original vendor that built the app recommended Tandem to us once they were acquired by another company.

What is the status of this engagement?

We've been working with Tandem since October 2016. The updated version of the app is live, but it's still a work in progress. Tandem's team will continue to work with us to build in new functionalities and maintain it.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Tandem produced a phenomenal app that's given us a way to truly understand who our consumer is, providing data on demographics, shopping habits, the frequency of shopping, etc. As a result, they've done a great job helping us bridge the gap between online and brick and mortar stores in a way that's never been done before. 

We've had close to 400,000 app downloads for just one location, whereas our top competitor has about 300,000 downloads within their entire portfolio of 40 centers. Over a third of the people in our service area have downloaded the app thus far. With 10 other projects in the works, we expect to scale very quickly.

We've also garnered a lot of media attention since the app's release. There's no question that we're moving in the right direction and that Tandem was the right partner to get us on track.

How did Tandem perform from a project management standpoint?

I touch base with my technology lead every day, who's been great about keeping me looped in on everything. Through Pivitol, I'm able to access updates regularly to ensure we're on track with milestones and hours billed.

Tandem personally selected the most relevant staff to work on our app. They adjusted our team as needed so as to accommodate our needs as the project progressed, ensuring our core contacts were consistent.

Compared to the original vendor that worked on our app, Tandem is more hands-on. They've been highly proactive in understanding our goals and solving any issues that may arise throughout the process.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I'm most impressed by Tandem's leadership, creativity, and professionalism. Working with an app developer involves a high investment and a lot of risk—Tandem is a company we've come to trust with that responsibility. Their team is genuine and operates with integrity. Their willingness to make adjustments to the staff working on our projects proves their commitment to the success of our work.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. We've worked with some staff members that weren't the right fit for our project, but their team has been great about making adjustments as needed to correct that. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a global communications company that provides equipment and software for our customers. My team is responsible for improving customer experience to make our company easier to do business with.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Tandem?

As a fairly old company, we have several legacy processes in place. Many ways we do business don’t match our consumers’ expectations. Tandem helped us envision and modernize the future of our digital customer experience to reach parity with the digital world as it exists today.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Tandem has completed many projects for different stakeholders in our company. I personally brought them in for four research, strategy, and UX projects. Since my engagements were in the envisioning stage and hadn’t gotten funding yet, we focused on ideas and design. As part of the statement of work, we begin each project with a list of expected deliverables. They tend to be fairly abstract because the last thing we want to do is constrain the brainstorming process.

The team conducted a three-month research engagement to identify personas and customer pain points. As they analyzed customer feedback, recurring themes emerged, like difficulty in navigating our digital properties. Taking a UX perspective, they developed digital solutions and changes in process to mitigate these problems. Our platform has 12 different portals for conducting business, many of which are outdated. Since some data isn't shared amongst them all, the user experience can vary dramatically and doesn’t match the features we currently produce. They recommended that we unify, and showed us what it might look like if we aggregated those functionalities into one place.

What is the team composition?

It varies between five to eight staff. Tandem is able to scale to fit a particular phase of a project. From a cost perspective, you're only paying for the resources you're using at any given point. Additional staff will always be available, should the need arise. We always have a project or strategy lead, along with tactical resources and UX designers. Even though my projects have not included development, they consult with developers to ensure technical feasibility.

How did you come to work with Tandem?

I'm not entirely sure how the relationship started, but I do know that they're very highly respected within our organization. We are both based in Chicago. They’re our go-to partner for executing projects we lack the bandwidth to complete internally.

What is the status of this engagement?

The first engagement started in 2016, and our work is ongoing. My team works with them on several projects each year, of which I personally conduct three to four.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

 The specific artifacts our engagement yielded included wireframes, visual design, and an end-to-end workflow. These materials bolstered my business case internally and helped me show my internal stakeholders our vision and the history of why this project is necessary. Tandem performed development for colleagues of mine and yielded great deliverables. When we're ready to hire a development partner, they'll be a great choice.

How did Tandem perform from a project management standpoint?

Tandem strongly believes in a regular cadence of check-ins to ensure they’re meeting expectations. We check in as often as three times a week. For a 12-week engagement, we’d bring in our stakeholders as early as week three to start evaluating whether the materializing artifacts meet the need. We evaluate their work based on weekly adjustments.

They are also always 100 percent on time and on budget, which is not an easy task when dealing with a company our size. Reliability is incredibly important because we don't have much operational latitude. We make the same commitments we solicit from vendors internally, and they nail it every time.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They are not shy about challenging us. As an often-siloed organization, stakeholders feel beholden to certain needs. Sometimes, an organization requires an external person to challenge internal ideas. Tandem is wonderful at guiding those conversations in a neutral way. As part of every engagement, they build in efforts to educate internal stakeholders on different ways of thinking and problem-solving. They help us spread the design thinking process throughout our company.

Tandem is great at understanding the crux of a problem statement. If tell them I need digital solutions because my users were angry about having an awful experience, they’ll abstract that scenario even further. They evaluate the effectiveness of my proposed solution and dig below the surface to find the customer's exact motivation. If I request an app or a portal, they won't take that at face value. Rather, they’ll challenge us to brainstorm other ways to accomplish our goals. They really helped us envision the future of our customer experience.

Are there any areas they could improve?

At the end of every engagement. they prepared us for next steps. The only thing they could do differently is to push us a bit further. During the gaps between our engagements, we can become idle while working channels internally to get funding.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be very clear about your expectations and goals for the engagement. Vague questions are frustrating for an agency and will prolong the initial discovery phase. Any way a client could shortcut that process would be great. Compiling all of your documentation in advance will help maximize time. Preparing things in advance will help speed the process along.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

The Illinois Science and Technology Institute is a 501(c)(3) affiliate of the Illinois Science and Technology Coalition. The coalition is working to be a convener in Illinois between tech companies, universities, and nonprofits to advance tech based policy in the state. The institute I work for is focused around STEM talent. We have 60-plus cross-sector partners, including universities, nonprofits, corporate partners, and high schools.

We won the right to run the research and development STEM learning exchange, which is part of the Illinois Pathways funding around creating pipelines from the state's kindergarten through 12th-grade schools to industries. We have three main initiatives, one of which is our STEM challenge. We work with our industry partners to come up with a real-world challenge they are facing in their industry today.

Sometimes, they already have a partnership with a high school, and we work to facilitate that relationship. Sometimes, the industry partner has no affiliation with a high school, and we work to find a partner school that would be a match for them. The students then have a semester to solve this real-world challenge for that industry partner. We also have a resource repository, which is kind of a Google of high-quality STEM experiences that is searchable for teachers and students.

The third initiative is a mentor-matching engine, and that's what Tandem helped us with. It's our online platform that connects Illinois high school students to STEM professionals. It's invitation only, and it's all focused around online mentoring. We work to recruit the mentors and then work with our partner schools to determine how many students they have conducting independent research projects and in what particular subjects. That helps our mentor recruitment, and it breaks down the kind of transaction costs and geographic areas that can be associated with mentoring. We have mentors from all over the country working with Illinois high school students through the platform.

What is your position?

I am the director of programs.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Tandem?

When I started with the organization, I was initially working on the mentor matching engine primarily. It was a platform that had previously been built in collaboration with the Illinois Math and Science Academy through a different platform. When I came on, there weren't many people using it.

I wanted to have a much more hands-on approach, to work with our mentors and teachers, get them onto this platform and start using it. There were a number of issues with the previous platform. There were many errors that would happen, it was very clunky, it was easy to click on the wrong thing and go to the wrong place. Teachers already have tons of things to do throughout the day, so having this platform that was not very intuitive felt like just an add-on to an extensive laundry list of to-do's. 

I went to my organization and told them that if we have plans to scale this program, this would not be the platform that would do it. It takes too much effort on my end per user. We couldn't get any metrics, and the back-end was very bulky and hard to use. We finally decided to rebuild it.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

Tandem rebuilt our platform from scratch. I met with them and gave them a list of issues I'd been compiling throughout the year that our teachers, mentors, and students had brought to me – features that weren't working, new features we would need, and how we would want this to work. I worked with them over the course of probably 12 to 16 weeks to rebuild it on a new back-end system. The new system was built using Ruby on Rails, which was a recommendation from Tandem.

They were also responsible for the front-end user interface. We collaborated on mockups and wireframes. We started building out the front-end, and then put the designs in towards the later part. The design phase happened throughout the process, but I don't think that part was implemented until the later stages.

Throughout the process, there were maybe five or six people working on the project. It was a range of developers, project leads, and quality assurance specialists, as well as one of them, was working on the UX/UI [user interface/user experience] stuff.

How did you come to work with Tandem?

The Illinois Science and Technology Coalition runs a corporate startup challenge, where they work with a group industry partners to identify needs they might have, and then interview startups that might be a good fit for those companies. They have a demonstration day, where they bring all of the startups to the companies. I believe the Tandem was one of the startups that they brought to one of their demo days.

We narrowed our selection down to Tandem and one other company, and then we sent those proposals off to people who have more technical knowledge than we do and asked them to review the specifics of the proposals. Both companies seemed great but, ultimately, we decided to go with Tandem.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

The general range is probably about $175,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project was launched the last week in July or first week in August [2015].

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

We've presented it to a number of different people. We had a professional development day this past Friday, where we showed it to all of our teachers. We also work with some partner nonprofits that use the platform as a tool for their programs. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.

I've gotten very little feedback from users, but that's a good thing. I used to hear from our teachers upward of 30 times a day with different errors and issues they were having. Right now, we have teachers using it, and I'm not hearing from them because it's all working, and it's intuitive to them, which is also great.

We work on the academic year, so our users are fully coming at it depending on when the students are going to be starting their research projects. Once we have more of our users on the platform, we'll be able to track specific user engagement metrics. We are now able to get student and mentor demographics, and Google Analytics is running in the background, so we can track the number of hours that different mentor groups are spending on the platform, which is valuable to our industry and university partners. Because it's such an early stage, we're still slowly getting the users involved, so we're not tracking anything yet.

How did Tandem perform from a project management standpoint?

They consistently delivered their assigned work on time and within budget. We had someone from the Illinois Math and Science Academy, who does development work himself, on the calls. I didn't know how long something should take, so if they said it would take a certain amount of hours, I wouldn't have a clue as to whether that was reasonable or not. He was always on the call to validate what was said, and we always felt like their time frame estimates were reasonable. They still deliver things quickly. If we realized at the last minute that we needed to add something, they were incredibly quick in the delivery. They were right on target with their scope, which was great.

We had another contender, who was a developer for the previous variation of the platform, and he claimed that Tandem's scope would never be possible, that we'd never be able to deliver a product in that time frame – and yet they did. We used Pivotal for project management, which worked really well, and we used Slack for an internal messaging system.

What distinguishes Tandem from other providers?

What made us decide to go with them was that they completely understood the project and what we needed. In our initial meeting, as I was going through my list from teachers, mentors, and students, they would add things in that were beneficial. They completely understood the project and what it would need right out of the gate. They knew right away what our needs were for different users, and what would make it a better platform, without me having to go into explicit detail.

I feel like they're always available, even if I have a silly question. They're really on the ball and quick to respond to me. They're incredibly communicative. I never worry about who I'm supposed to contact if something happens, or whether they'll be able to fix it in time. Even after the project wrapped up, I still talk to them maybe once a week to ask them questions, and they're incredibly responsive.

Is there anything Tandem could have improved or done differently?

No. Tandem has been incredibly helpful and responsive. Everything was on time and just as I thought it would be. It's working great, and I believe we'll be able to scale our programs out because of it. They had an open house that my CEO and I went to and, by the end, it felt like they were friends because I talked to them so often. I don't have any complaints.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

I work at a well-known research university. We're a research focused business school with full-time and part-time MBA [Master of Business Administration] programs, and an executive education MBA program.

What is your position and responsibilities?

I am the senior associate director of experiential learning. I provide support to faculty and courses at the school that are built around projects that are sourced from real-world clients who bring their actual business problems into the classroom. Then the instruction is built around the projects that are brought to the students.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Tandem?

One of the faculty members that I work with was interested in leadership development, how people function in teams, and how teams are functional, not functional, or dysfunctional. He has a number of papers and activities that have developed from his research, built around getting people to work on what we often think as soft skills, interpersonal dynamics, and that sort of thing. He's been working on this for many years, and he's tried a number of different instruments through the years to get people to collect data on their own performance with regard to these skills, in a team context especially.

We had this idea of looking into whether it would be possible to create a mobile app that allows people to collect this sort of data as people are used to collecting data with their mobile devices these days. In the past, people had notebooks, which they didn't use consistently. People aren't usually very good at journaling without some direction. It seemed to us that a mobile platform was a logical opportunity to with which to experiment a little. That was the project we took to Tandem, to develop both an iOS and an Android app that operationalized this data collection related to interpersonal skills.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

After the initial project of developing the app, we have continued to work with Tandem. We are now just starting work on a web-based app that will also access the same database. Users can access their data through either iOS and Android, and the web. There's an administrative back-end for people who are administering this activity to classes usually. There's a tool for them to customize the experience so it's germane to their program. For the iOS app, they used Xcode, but I don't know about the technologies used for Android.

How did you come to work with Tandem?

There's a professor here at the school who teaches an app development course. He's very plugged into the scene here in Chicago. I met with him as my first step, and he gave me a list of several development shops that he felt had good reputations and good experience. I met with a bunch of them, and Tandem seemed like a good fit. It was an informal search.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

It was between $200,000 and $400,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The collaboration is ongoing as they're currently working on the accompanying web app.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

I think we're in sort of a unique situation, where it's a classroom tool rather than a commercial product. Prior to having the mobile app, we were using clunky stuff that we had built with survey software, so I wouldn't even want to compare them. However, anecdotally, with the refinements that have been made through the course of the project, we've definitely seen an increase in usage.

They were an ideal partner for someone like me, who had a lot of uncertainty around what I was looking for. They never seemed to get frustrated with my limited ability to articulate what I needed. I would recommend Tandem especially to those in the rare circumstance of having money to build something, but not knowing exactly what they want to build. I think that's a real strength of theirs.

How did Tandem perform from a project management standpoint?

I haven't worked with other dev shops, but I think this is a real strength of theirs. They've been very sensitive to keeping me apprised of where we are in the budget. By and large, they've been very accurate in terms of when we can expect delivery on certain things, and how much certain things will cost. I've felt in very good hands in that regard.

What distinguishes Tandem from other providers?

The reason I was inclined to go with Tandem was that, from the first scoping meetings we had, they seemed more intellectually engaged with the purpose of the app than other people. I had a rather unfortunate experience with a different dev shop, where I met with them, and they seemed good. Then, I started to get the sense that they weren't actually that interested. They were more interested in talking about how great they were.

I was sort of wary of that subsequently, but I never got that feeling from Tandem. From the very beginning, I really got the sense that they cared about what the need is that is supposed to be met with this app, and that should be the driving force guiding the work. The people I've worked with there have been true collaborators. They've helped guide the direction of development and the shape the products have taken, in a very thoughtful way. I've been very happy to have that. 

Is there anything Tandem could have improved or done differently?

I can't think of anything. For me, it's been an overwhelmingly positive experience, and they've been very flexible. I haven't had a lot of concrete needs that I'd expect other clients would have. The needs sort of pop up indiscriminately and unpredictably, but they've always been very good at responding to them. I'm very happy.

BACKGROUND

Could you briefly describe your organization?

We’ve actually evolved quite a bit since working with Tandem. We build relevant recommendation systems that understand consumer preferences, whether it would be online, offline, in a retail environment, or e-commerce site. Our system attempts to understand what our customer is looking for and then provides them with product offers, discounts, or promotions.

What is your position?

I’m one of the founders, and I’m also the CEO.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

Could you describe the business challenges you were trying to address when you initiated the relationship with Tandem?

At the time we approached them, we basically had the entire system of what we wanted to deliver. I was leading the product development at that time. We’re a really small company, only three or four people. We had all of our algorithms tested and verified. We even had a Web prototype running, but it didn’t look good. It simply wasn’t scalable. None of us were very great Web developers, which limited our ability to realize the vision for our product. For a primetime release, we wanted a lot of consumers to use our solution so we could get more feedback. We knew we needed to find a development team that would be able to customize and scale our product once we collected our user feedback. That’s when we approached Tandem.

SOLUTION

Could you describe the scope of the project in greater detail?

It was pretty much soups to nuts. We came to them with our prototype. It was a Ruby on Rails product, but nothing intended to be scalable yet. It was really our proof of concept. We came to them and said, “Here’s what we have so far. We’d like a complete rebuild from start to finish. It needs to be something we can then manage independently and scale.” They came in and did everything for us to get us up and running. We wanted something that was both visually appealing and functional, especially on the admin side. They handled all of the custom development, the testing, data prep and migration, visual design, training and support. We collaborated with them from a strategic standpoint.

How did you select Tandem as your solution partner?

It was a very lengthy process. We didn’t want a typical consultant that says yes to everything we asked. We wanted a more analytical partner. We needed a prudent thinker with creative insights.

We were fortunate enough to have an investor in our company who used to own a development firm. We wanted to get his recommendation. We asked him, “Who’s going to be one of the best vendors capable of doing what it is we want?” He’s a top-notch developer himself with considerable experience in the area. He was the one that referred us to Tandem. He said, “Those are the guys that you want. I know their level of expertise really, really well. I trust them. They’re going to give you the angle that you need for this project.”

We also approached a few other bigger players in town with our statement of work. We conducted full interviews with each of them. We had five leading candidates and Tandem on our short list. It was actually a fairly easy choice as that point. Tandem stood head and shoulders above everyone else in terms of capabilities and understanding. It was clear to us that they had significant experience building custom solutions with Ruby on Rails, and they were very comfortable with building products that scale easily.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in monetary terms?

I believe in total it ended up costing between $200,000 and $250,000.

Do you still retain them for ongoing support?

We would, if something came up. We don’t always use them because we now have the whole team in place, so we’re able to grow and maintain it ourselves. That said, we had something come up three months ago and we had them work on something for then. We use them on a case-by-case basis.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

In terms of results, could you share any statistics, metrics, or user feedback that would demonstrate the effectiveness of the work they’ve delivered?

Our launch was outstanding. We received hundreds, probably even more than a thousand emails from end-users. We were fortunate to launch the product; it was a consumer product, on a couple of major news sites. We were able to grow our user base by tens of thousands literally overnight, which was great for that particular product. We had thousands of people writing about it on social media. We received messages such as, “This is so great. It’s such a sexy product. It works so smoothly. It’s exactly what we’re looking for.” We experienced very few production bugs, too. I can’t even recall any major defects with our launch. We are extremely satisfied with everything they’ve done thus far.

When working with Tandem, is there anything you’d consider unique about their approach or development methodology that distinguishes them from other vendors?

The biggest thing is that they’ve been doing this for such a long time, and they just understand their clients’ business. When I went to the two other shops, for instance, they told me everything I wanted to hear. They can build everything and anything.

Tandem was the only one who said, “No, you shouldn’t do that. You should actually think about it this way.” Even though the project might be half the scope, or bring in less money for them, I felt that they truly believed that and they were more interested in aligning themselves with us. They’ve offered invaluable recommendations to us, and they’ve been a major factor in the way our product has changed and evolved. 

In retrospect, are there areas that you think they could improve on as a service provider?

Not really. I’ve been extremely satisfied with Tandem. Their communication was extraordinary and their technical expertise was incredible. They have coverage in pretty much all areas of the major areas of Web development. They’re also very flexible with working onsite, or remotely. If I could build a consultancy, that’s how I would make it. They’re extremely client-centric over there and it reflects in the quality of their work.

BACKGROUND

Could you briefly describe your organization?

The company I work for is called Knovation. We are a K-12 educational firm, and we’ve been in business about 14 years. We develop products that help professional educators, school districts and administrators more easily track the progress of their students. These products also enhance the overall ability of stakeholders to deliver more customized lessons to their students.

What is your position?

I’m the vice president of solutions management.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

Could you describe the business challenges you were attempting to address when you began the relationship with Tandem?

With the company being in place 14 years, our original approach to development was through what’s known as the waterfall method. However, with our newer products, we wanted to transition to a more iterative approach to development. We wanted to get our end users and stakeholders involved in the process so we could collect their feedback. After conducting some research, we decided that the only way to go was with an agile approach. In order to get started, we needed a vendor with strong skill sets and extensive experience in the Ruby on Rails environment. Our goal was to work with this vendor for a few months, allow them to get started, and have that initial work function as our foundation moving forward.

SOLUTION

How did you select Tandem as your solution partner for this endeavor?

We had another consultant located in Chicago that we’ve known for a long time. He was hired by our company to help us make the initial transition to an agile approach to development. He was responsible for setting up the team that would spearhead the new agile process. He drafted our statement of work and isolated a few potential vendors to send it to. He then reviewed their proposals and recommended Tandem to us. We introduced ourselves to their team and discussed their relevant experience with agile development and Ruby on Rails. We felt very confident that they would be a good fit for us, and we were proven right.

Could you describe the scope of this project? 

We basically started from scratch. They needed to set up our local environment with Rails and configure the database that we use. They really built our backend foundation. They handled a lot of the initial custom development and created documentation for their processes so we could refer to them later on. We needed to ensure that our internal development team would be able to assume complete responsibility for our future products. From time to time, they’d also personally instruct our team members on best practices, too.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this project in monetary terms?

At this point, I’d like to decline that information.

When this project was completed?

The project remains ongoing, but they rolled off in June of 2013.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

In terms of results, could you share any statistics, metrics, or user feedback that would demonstrate the effectiveness of the work that they’ve delivered?

When they rolled off, we still hadn’t delivered this product into a client. They were only responsible for establishing a foundation for us to work from. As a result, it’s hard to attribute anything more tangible to their work. All of the feedback we’re now receiving from customers has been positive, but numerous vendors have been involved, so it’s not possible to link that to any particular one. I will say that the process flowed extremely well. Their developers are very competent, and they’re also great communicators. Our own development team never had issues with knowledge transfer.

When working with Tandem, is there anything you’d consider special or unique about their approach or development methodology that distinguishes them from other vendors you’ve worked with?

They assume the role of a mentor as opposed to simply code monkeys. When we incorporated their team, they really wanted to understand the value that we’re delivering, not just what code they needed to write. They began to learn the inherent value and the positions of our various stakeholders. That’s not something typical of developers, but then again, they’re really much more than a development shop. They’re outstanding with strategy as well as pure application development.

In retrospect, are there areas you think they could improve upon as a service provider, or are there things you’d do differently as the client before initiating this type of project?

Perhaps simply helping us to understand the architecture a little bit more of how they were going to build out this application. It’s something, too, that we could have seen the bigger picture sooner because it felt like they were building bits and pieces. I understand that the iterative approach involved refining components as you move through the process, but it also makes it difficult for the client to envisage the complete product. If there had been some way that they could have communicated the larger architecture scheme that they were envisioning, that might have been helpful.