Maxcode

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Splintt, an online training services company. We create e-learning, interactive videos, and have a learning management system for our clients, which is subscription based. We have national and international clients.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Maxcode?

We needed software development done, initially.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Maxcode’s team is creating code for our learning management system.

The system has a user portal with e-learning modules, videos, and all the information users need. The backend has many functions, including managing users, reporting user progress, data assembly, creating online courses, uploading content, inputting learning programs and flow, which corresponds with the user portal, and a notification system when a program is completed. Admins can also choose which programs users have access to, group learners together for certain programs, and more. 

Maxcode also has a content creation team working on our e-learning projects. We provide scripts for them to work on, and they build in specific third-party software tools. They do UX design, and implement the graphic design done by our internal designers.

What is the team composition?

There are four people on the software development team, and two on the content creation team.

How did you come to work with Maxcode?

Jules (Managing Director) was a friend of my business partner. They offered better pricing and higher quality developers than their competitors. We started with software development, and it grew into more over time.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent over €1,000,000 (approximately $1,200,000).

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together around November 2010, and it’s ongoing. They completed the initial rebuild of the system by April 2011, but there are continuous updates, added features, and new projects.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

For the development team, we check their scoping to ensure it is based on the KPIs, such as functionalities not interfering with each other, testing procedures, regression testing, etc. Our clients are extremely happy with the quality of work Maxcode delivers, and so are we.

For the content creation team, we make sure the product works as it should and track the cost-efficiency. We are satisfied in this area, as well.

How did Maxcode perform from a project management standpoint?

We work in Agile Scrum, with daily meets, scoping sessions, retrospectives, and two-week sprints. They give suggestions and ideas, and it’s a smooth collaboration. They also meet internally to track quality. We use Jira, Confluence, Slack, and Zoom.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have high quality and professionalism. The teams take responsibility for their work, ask for feedback, and continue improvement in order to do their jobs well. It’s fun to work with Maxcode.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Sometimes the e-learning team tends to be repetitive; perhaps they need to motivate their people more, or switch teams around. We would also like to see other projects they’re working on to give us new insights.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Software Development Manager of a healthcare company offering enterprise supply chain, clinical, and analytics solutions.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We integrate with a wide variety of systems. Our existing integration platform was aging and difficult to develop for, lacking tests and alerting functionality.

It was designed to run on servers, making it costly to run. Ultimately it was deemed not suitable to move forward within a server-less world.

SOLUTION

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

We found Maxcode through a referral, however we reviewed two other vendors in comparison. We visited their main office in Iasi Romania and were impressed with their openness and focus on quality software development.

The deciding factors were:

1. the ability to scale
2. quality of work
3. integration with our existing teams.

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

A number of leads from both companies designed the overall solution. An AWS based suite of APIs was built using .NET Core, hosted on AWS Lambda.

A wide variety of AWS technology were used, including:

• DynamoDb
• AuroraDB
• CloudWatch Logs
• CloudTrail
• Systems Manager
• S3 API Gateway

The team built the solution over 12 months using Scrum and 2-week sprints. The first customer was live after 4 months, with additional customers and functionality going live over the following 8 months.

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

We had 6 of our own developers, and we scaled to 12 using Maxcode (+6). We split the team into two - 3 Maxcode members per team. Each team had a variety of Senior, Mid, and Junior Developers, with one Team Lead per team. Our own product owner managed both teams from a product delivery perspective.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Successful outcome. More than 5 customers onboarded onto the new platform as it rolled out. Feedback from customers is that we are more responsive to issues - we now retry in the event of failure - and feedback from our own Helpdesk team is that it is more obvious now when issues occur.

The most successful customer response story is that we once detected that one of their systems was down before they did on the new platform. We maintain the relationship with Maxcode and we scale up and down when needed.

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

Strong focus on Scrum. Common tools such as Jira, GitHub, Slack, Teams were used. Deadlines were met and sometimes delivered early.

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

They have a very strong focus on working with the customer but will challenge them if they think there's a better way. We have a great collaborative approach.

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

Maybe a little too focused on Scrum :) But having strong processes is important in a nearshore/offshore model.