Patagonian

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the IT Manager of "Grupo Prima". We produce, pack and trade (for export) fresh apples, pears and kiwis. We have more than 1300 has of orchads, 6 packing house and 1 trader location

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

We have a very dynamic business and the Company is raising so high so we need tech suppliers that can give us the flexibility to support that growth. Our core apps are build in-house and Patagonian help us with his services and human resources.

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

We've selected Patagonian because is a young company with a great responsability. On the other hand, in addition to growing, they have expectations of continuing to do so, which generates more confidence.

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

Our company is complex, so in ours projects we hire people with commitment and functional skills. We are working in Web and Desktop Solutions using .NET / JSON / XML and SQL Server

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

We only have one right now. Is a Senior .NET Developer but in a few weeks we are hiring new skills to help us to develop Business Intelligence.

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

We are able to speed up the delivery in software development working with people that have enough independence to work in functional requirements. This independence give us trust and avoid us to optimize the time of the rest of the team.

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

Mainly is Scrum. We are using Ms Teams and depending the moment of the year we have more o less timelines. Moment of the year because our company have a strong seasson for harvesting, packing and trading during the first 4 or 5 months of the year

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

Patagonian is a transparent and young company that continues to grow. Is open, is modern, is agile.

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

I can talk only in the way that they help us and the answer is no.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the founder and CEO of Rhebus, and we're a video platform that works with video creators and publishers to distribute content across platforms, helping them make money.

What challenge were you trying to address with Patagonian?

We're a small company, and we don't have our own engineering and software development team. To sell what we sell, we needed a team that can help us build our platform and fix things when something goes wrong.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Patagonian provides a wide range of services for us. Currently, they’re providing JavaScript-based software development and product management. They help us maintain the product roadmap and make decisions when we have competing priorities. They know the timelines and decide on which to prioritize. 

When we first started, they worked more on the architecture of the product. They figured how we’d set it up, what we’d build first, and what our plan was. They set up our AWS servers and engineered the backend of the platform to make sure that everything worked properly. 

At its core, our platform lets users upload videos in two ways. It can be via a direct upload, where they grab a video from their desktop and upload it to the platform. It can also be through feed-based uploads. Once the video is uploaded, they can distribute it to multiple websites or a connected TV channel such as Roku or Amazon. If they have a website, they can grab the code right off the platform and put it on their page or wherever it’s going to be displayed.

What is the team composition?

In terms of building the platform, we’re working with Juan (Product Manager) and a product developer. We’ve also worked with two other developers, a software architect, and a systems engineer.

I’ve also worked with their co-founder and business development person to get all the contracts signed. The teammates rotate in and out over the course of the project. 

How did you come to work with Patagonian?

The Rhebus platform's original development team and I have done a few things together, and they recommended Patagonian to us. I was also already aware of them even before we bought the platform. In a previous project, we looked around for firms to augment our in-house engineering team, and their name came up. We didn’t interview them at that time.

I also spent a lot of time in Argentina over the last 25 years. I have a lot of friends who work in the software development industry there, so I had a good idea of what to expect from them and their capabilities. As a result, working with Patagonian made a lot of sense for us. 

How much have you invested with them?

So far, we’ve spent around $150,000 on their services. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We engaged with them in June 2019, and the partnership is ongoing.

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

Patagonian is very good at what they do. Their work quality is good, too. If a particular engineer working on the project doesn’t understand something that we’re working on, he’ll find out about it from someone else on the team and learn how to do it. They’re great in terms of figuring things out. 

Moreover, when bugs come up — because bugs do happen — the team will stop what they’re doing and fix them. If something isn’t working the way it’s supposed to or not in the way we designed it, then they’ll go back and fix it. They’re not going to roll something onto the platform without checking with someone else who knows how to do it.

How did Patagonian perform from a project management standpoint?

Generally speaking, they’re responsive and clear about the implications of changing any plans we have. They’re good at communicating time estimates or changes, and we tend to have a lot of such changes. For instance, when a client requests something that’s not built into the system, I need the Patagonian team to do it, and that takes us away from our plan. They’re responsive and clear on the implications of such changes. They tell me how much time the changes are going to take, and then we make a decision and move forward. 

Juan works well with me on the actual plans and has a better understanding of the depth of the platform. He’s helpful in thinking through features that clients request. There are occasions when I have to chase after them, but I don’t consider that to be anything out of normal. That’s the way things work. 

We use JIRA for planning and tracking bugs, features, and cycles, and it sets up how we do everything. Using it isn’t necessary since only three of us are on this project. However, it helps me understand what’s going on in the process. As a result, they use it, and that’s great. They could’ve suggested Excel or Slack, but they use JIRA because it helps me understand and track what we’re doing. 

They work during Argentine hours, so I send pending tasks via email or Slack by the end of the day. When they work in the morning and I’m still asleep, they already have what they need. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

When they switch engineers, it’s often a pretty seamless transition. They do a great job of moving one person off of the project and bringing in someone new into it. There’s always going to be some bumps and a little bit of drop-off when we get someone new. We’ve gone through that transition twice now in almost two years, and it’s been seamless. I know that’s a hard thing to do, but they’ve done a good job on that. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

We can improve our documentation process. Had it been part of our relationship and development cycle from the beginning, it wouldn’t even be an issue now. It hasn’t been part of it, so it’s a topic that keeps coming back to us. 

I’m concerned about getting flat-footed when someone requests documentation and we don’t have it. It could’ve been baked early on in the process from their side in terms of how we’d do things. However, it’s only a minor complaint. It’s just an area that I’d like to highlight. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

There are two snags that are hard to overcome when it comes to global businesses. One is language, and the other is time zones. 

Customers should understand that they’ll be talking to people that speak English well but have accents. Some people don’t deal well with accents, but they have to understand that English isn’t the team’s first language. Not everybody on my team speaks Spanish, so the team’s English is very important.  

Then, depending on where the customers are, there’s going to be 3–6 hours of difference between the team’s timezone and theirs. They need to plan for that. They have to get into a cycle or rhythm of setting up work for the next day. I do my JIRA updates in the late afternoon since they’re working on Argentine hours. If customers can get into that rhythm, the collaboration will work well.  

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder & CEO at Conversifi, an e-learning company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Patagonian?

We are in the process of launching a web app but we're running on crunch time. We started looking for another vendor because the initial team working on the project couldn’t finish it on our set timeline. The challenge is picking up from what the previous team already developed which wasn't that much.   

What was the scope of their involvement?

Patagonian developed a product that we launched in the market only two months later. Their team utilized various technologies like JavaScript and Angular to establish the platform. The build was also a MySQL database using MongoDB. 

The Patagonian team is responsible for the matching algorithm and making sure that the two sides of our platform are synced together. Now, the team handles update and maintenance services for the platform. The Patagonian team works to ensure that the platform runs smoothly on both mobile devices and computers.

What is the team composition?

Throughout the course of the project, we’ve worked with 15 team members but we currently work with 5 people. We interact with their project managers, project managers, tech leads, and developers for this project.

How did you come to work with Patagonian?

The team was recommended by our former colleague. He worked with them in the past and said that their team could help us with our tight schedule.

There were several factors that were important to us. First, we wanted a team in the same timezone as us. Second, we were looking for a bilingual group that could communicate with us in both Spanish and English. Lastly, it was crucial that they could provide flexible support and Patagonian met all of those criteria.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve already invested around $800,000 in this project.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing project with Patagonian started in November 2017.

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

Since we were initially running out of time before we met them, the Patagonian team calmed our nerves. They helped us with our MVP in two months  — a commendable feat. The platform has been live since they finished and we’ve finally reached the technical stage with them.

The dashboards that they’ve worked on help our business operations run seamlessly. The technologies they’ve built allow us to evolve further. Perhaps, one of the hardest things to do is balance and manipulate our platform’s equilibrium — and the team is doing a great job in ensuring that. 

Another thing, the biggest measurement of success for us is not the technical points. It’s about having a beneficial and exceptional partnership because that makes a huge difference. We could not have done this without their help over the past few years.

How did Patagonian perform from a project management standpoint?

Patagonian is resourceful and excels at putting the right people fort for the task at hand – they introduced architects, designers, and other experts in past requirements. 

Over the years, we’ve used different project management tools such as JIRA to help both ends collaborate smoothly. In terms of communication, the team, even the owners, are very helpful and responsive. Patagonian is always accessible and even during crunch times, they are able to attend to our inquiries.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their efficiency and effectiveness impress us. The fact that they’ve been with us from the start and were patient, supportive, committed, and flexible throughout is excellent. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Nothing that I could think of.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

This doesn’t just apply to Patagonian but to every engagement, it’s important to know and understand both sides to build a good rapport. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am part of the ConnectAmericas project, a platform that connects small and medium businesses in Latin America and the Caribbean. This program was launched by the IDB [Inter-American Development Bank]. We have different partners in the program like Alibaba, SeaLand, and Google. We have launched this platform to support the internationalization of the SMBs in the region. I am the CTO, leading the software development, infrastructure, and technical support.

What challenge were you trying to address with Patagonian Tech?

The project goals were to implement a software development methodology based on Scrum principles and Agile methodologies that would help us manage the project, all of the software development tasks, and the infrastructure and technological solution adjustments in a more precise and detailed way. They are providing development services, implementation, and deployment of new features within our system.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The team changes depending on the activity backlog because it varies and it is updated every two weeks. The number depends on the required level of effort. We have the flexibility to increase or decrease capacity but we usually work with four developers, one architect, one UI/UX [user interface/user experience] designer, and two other resources for quality control.

We are using Drupal for the core content management part and we did some other custom developments on Drupal as well. We mainly use Grails on Java for the backend and Angular for the frontend. In terms of database, we are using MySQL but we have some other technologies in other platforms.

How did you come to work with Patagonian Tech?

We chose them through an RFP [request for proposal] with the IDB, which was necessary for this type of contract. These are always done through RFP's that are published for international firms. I was not involved in the selection process but different criteria were taken into account, such as the proposed methodology, the assigned resources, proposals for the project, and the company's background or previous experience with the IDB as well as other organizations. We were very careful with the references topic and we found a cost/benefit balance in finding a firm that had more knowledge of the Latin American market in terms of SMB's.

What is the status of this engagement?

We have an ongoing relationship and we've done several renovations. At this time, they are our main partner in terms of technology development.

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

Patagonian Tech does quality assurance, testing, and reduces bugs in the production. We had another firm that was previously in charge of this, but Patagonian Tech handles all of it now. This is one of the main insights. Another important contribution was the visual as well as the functional quality of the new modules and new functionalities that were implemented.

How did Patagonian Tech perform from a project management standpoint?

We used JIRA, in which we’ve grouped all activities and epics. Epics are the big functionalities of the system, and from the epics, we define a series of user stories and we have everything located there: the epics, the different impacted users, granular activities, and techniques that are connected to an effective UX execution. In JIRA, we have all of the abilities, testing tickets, and different releases that are going into production. We have documented and organized all products or tickets that are going to be rolled out in every version.

All of the communication is managed through JIRA, even the infrastructure is also there. The business communication is independent.

What did you find most impressive about Patagonian Tech?

The main highlight is the sense of project ownership and the commitment level of all the people participating in the team. They understand the sensibility and other urgent topics and critical aspects of the business.

Are there any areas Patagonian Tech could improve?

The main area of improvement at the moment are the instances that are not within the frame of the project. Since it’s the same team that implements new initiatives and bug fixes, they can better communicate their findings within the platform and attack certain urgent topics that we tend to disregard. Perhaps, we are not communicating the cases in detail, but it is something we can start improving.