MistyWest

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a technical director in the information and computer science division of SRI International, a nonprofit R&D institute primarily focused on applied research. We take novel ideas and intellectual properties and then transition that to our government and commercial clients.

I primarily work with commercial customers that are interested in innovating new product areas or enhancing existing products with AI solutions.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with MistyWest?

We were looking to build a new medical device that would help to enhance the healthcare of seniors living in their own homes. MistyWest had experience in industrial design, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and optics, all of which we needed to build early yet robust prototypes that we could deploy in a targeted environment for the research purposes that we had.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

MistyWest built 12–24 prototypes. We worked very closely together on the design and requirements. They built the devices and shipped them to us.

We provided MistyWest with what the mission of the project was, but they innovatively approached the device’s design and deployment. They figured out how to deploy, power, install, and maintain the device. We gave them a fairly high-level of requirements, but there was a lot of innovative thinking on their side.

What is the team composition?

We had two main contacts. 6–7 people came in and out of the project as needed for the different phases.

How did you come to work with MistyWest?

I found them through an internal colleague who was already familiar with them. Also, SRI had used MistyWest on another project in the past.

How much have you invested with them?

It cost less than $300,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project started around June 2019, and their piece was complete by November or December of that year.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We didn’t have specific metrics, but I was certainly looking for devices that fully met our feature completeness and quality specifications. I was also looking at their level of support, such as how quickly they were able to address glitches. I can say that they scored very high on each of those metrics. 

I would very much recommend them for any future work or to anybody who wants to work with them. They were proactive and professional, and they brought in the right resources on an as-needed basis for the project.

How did MistyWest perform from a project management standpoint?

Our work together was remote, although this was a pre-COVID-19 project. I never met them physically, but we worked very well remotely together through web sessions, phone calls, and documents.

We had a good meeting cadence — we regularly met every week through video calls, and we sometimes met even more than that if necessary.

I appreciated that they regularly created PowerPoint presentations to let us know where they were with the project, what things had been completed since the previous week, what issues needed to be discussed, and how we were doing with the budget and timeline.

MistyWest was professional with their project management. They made sure that the right people were on the call. If a project manager wasn’t available due to an illness or something else, they had someone fill in, and that person knew enough about what was happening to be able to represent the project. I was quite impressed with their project management capabilities.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I wouldn’t want to pick one particular quality.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The nature of our business is research, so we inevitably run into unforeseen issues. However, they were good at responding to those and trying to solve them as best as they could. I can’t think of any specific area of improvement in the project that they could’ve tackled better.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be clear on the vision and purpose of what you want to do. MistyWest is innovative and will help you with the project, but it’s best with this kind of engagement to have a clarity of purpose ahead of time and know who is going to do what. They were appreciative that this was the way we ran our project; sometimes, customers can be a bit indecisive about what they want to accomplish.

The nature of their business is building working hardware, so you want to be careful not to change the goalpost halfway through the project. Having that kind of clarity upfront is important for a business like MistyWest to thrive.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the technical project lead at a search engine and technology company. We focus on advanced technologies and projects.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with MistyWest?

We needed a team that could do some contract engineering work, explore some design, and build hardware prototypes.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Though I can’t go into much detail, there were two main projects that we ended up working with them for. The first one was building a graphical design system for us — this involved UI/UX design.

The second task was to work on some hardware electrical prototypes that would allow us to do engineering tests. MistyWest mostly used graphical design tools like Adobe XD and ST microprocessors for the prototype. The team was also responsible for writing firmware for us.

What is the team composition?

In total, we worked with five people from MistyWest — two designers, a project manager, a business development specialist, and a firmware designer who was also in charge of the low-level hardware. The project manager was our main contact but we also interacted with the other team members.

How did you come to work with MistyWest?

The team had worked with us in the past and I personally met their founder at a previous conference. We regularly meet every six months, and I always thought that it would be good to work with them, and finally, we found a perfect project to collaborate on.

How much have you invested with them?

We invested around $300,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

The engagement ran from January—November 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

This is tricky since the project was impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic but we’re happy with the project. I don’t think we could have asked for anything more than what they gave us as far as engineering and design works. However, we don’t have any metrics to measure the outcome.

How did MistyWest perform from a project management standpoint?

At the beginning of the engagement, we didn’t have any definite deliverables in mind, so we moved at a slower pace, but once everything was figured out, we were happy with the direction and results. Our original statement of work changed because of COVID-19. The plans we had were no longer what we wanted to explore anymore but MistyWest was accommodating and responsive to us — they allowed us to adjust our statement of work and timelines.

Generally, the team was flexible, supportive, easy to work with, and were able to deliver despite the adjustments on the initial plans. As for project management, MistyWest kept the progress in check and took notes during our meetings which is great. They also scheduled bi-weekly sync meetings during the engagement. We shared written logs and we communicated through Slack, email, and video conference calls. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were a fairly creative group of people who had good technical expertise. MistyWest was willing to work with us in some areas that weren’t well-defined. They were also comfortable with working with less defined specs than a lot of other contract engineering agencies.

Overall, MistyWest had a good wide scope of skills — strong design, hardware engineering, and software capabilities. They’re a full package team that could work on an entire project so you won't have to split the tasks between various agencies.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t think that this is their fault but during the start of the project, we thought that it would be a collaborative work where we would often see each other and sit shoulder to shoulder. However, due to the travel restrictions brought by the COVID-19 pandemic, it wasn’t quite as collaborative as we hoped. It felt like they were just doing something for us, which wasn’t the original plan.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

MistyWest is a contract engineering company, not just an agency that will write PowerPoint presentations for you. They’re a group of people who can implement and create deliverables.