MobiDev Corporation

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Our company designs and sells 3D printers for large and small industrial concerns as well as designers, artists and other professionals and also to domestic markets. Founded in UK and with offices in the USA we have around 150 employees. I am the software manager responsible for all aspects of the company that relate to customer facing software.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire MobiDev?

We had a requirement to build a software platform to allow bespoke offerings to our customers and particular industries to support the use of our printers. At that point our internal development capabilities were limited and time was short in a rapidly changing market.

In order to support the sale of our printers we required rapid development of a system, which we could continue to develop internally in the future, whilst we built up a team.

What were your goals for this project?

Automation of operation is a growth area in our field and software is a key enabler to achieve this. Each customer even in a particular market segment is slightly different in what they need to support this aim, so a flexible, configurable system was necessary. Additionally operation in the cloud, on premise and on desk top was a goal of the project.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Before I worked at the company several alternatives had been explored of which MobiDev was one. When I arrived we reassessed these alternatives as well as searching for other possible candidates.

MobiDev’s mode of operation supported the ability to carry out a small pilot project based on business analysis, with which we were able to determine suitability and gain confidence in terms of relationships and technical abilities. Also, the flexibility and possibility for elasticity in delivery supported our requirement to match our financial needs in case of peaks in troughs in our position in a dynamic and developing market.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

MobiDev supplied end to end services, from business analysis, research into technologies and platforms as well as standard development testing and not least project management services. Development was carried out with 2 week sprints in an agile process.

They were always open to discussion about approaches based on my and other colleagues experience and facilitated this professionally. Early on in the project we jointly discovered a hidden requirement which required a change in the plan/schedule and MobiDev were able to quickly reconfigure the plan and architecture to support this, which has led to a more staged delivery of the software system, allowing us to get parts of the system to customers sooner than planned.

What was the team composition?

The team size varied from 2 or 3 at early stages a period of around 5 and we plan to move up to around 7 in the future. At the current stage there has been 3 developers 1 QA engineer and a project manager (around 50%). In earlier stages we had Business Analysis team members. At each stage we also had access to specialists in system architecture, devOps etc to call on.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

As mentioned above, we are able to deliver support to our sales team through the ability to offer to customers additional value, beyond our printers’ performance, as just ‘products’, impressive as that is.

By additionally being able to support increased process automation we can additionally offer increased productivity gains to them. Our platform co-developed with MobiDev is key to achieving that aim already even before the project is completed.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Even though the Project Manager was not full time, it felt that they were full time. Regular meetings, based around the sprint cycle, covered progress and work for the next cycle. Issues raised were dealt with promptly and with out significant schedule impact.

The final proof was in software components and functionality delivered with very little work necessary to tweak for incorporation. Communication was via Jira/Confluence and Skype meetings. Also one visit to MobiDev’s office a few months after the project started also helped significantly with the execution of the project.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their robust execution of business analysis and sprint execution was the most impressive, followed by access to a wide range of expertise that a company of our size will not have for a while are high lights about how MobiDev worked.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Very little that can be improved up on by a team working remotely. Infact in some ways it is a benefit as documentation has to clear. Having worked with UK, US and European development teams, this team is certainly at the very top of my list of effective ones, and a pleasure to work with.

Some may say that they are not cheap, but if one considers the speed of ramp up to full effectiveness they are very good value for money. If I had to express one area for improvement it may be to introduce automated testing in earlier, but that has already been addressed and was never a real concern.