Planet Argon

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Director of Engineering of LabArchives

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Software solutions for scientific research

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Planet Argon to accomplish?

• Working alongside their team to upgrade Ruby on Rails from 2.3 to 3.2

SOLUTION

How did you find Planet Argon?

Online Search

Why did you select Planet Argon over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Past experience with similar projects

How many teammates from Planet Argon were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Analyze current Ruby on Rails codebase and dependencies 
Create an upgrade plan that included risk assessment, milestones, and anticipated timelines 
Partner with internal development team to plan and excecute on each milestone 
Mentor and educate internal development team to allow for continuation of the project without assistance 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

• Delivery of detailed upgrade plan, including milestones and anticipated timelines
• Delivery of risk assessement, including known dependency issues
• Successful major Rails upgrade of codebase 
• Team interviews which reinforced new knowlege gained from mentorship

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Framework upgrade projects are fortunate to have very clearly defined, easily measurable objectives. Our team met before each major version upgrade began to discuss the plan and anticipated timeline, then regularly thoughout the project to provide feedback on progress.

Being a software project, some tasks met anticipated timelines, some were early, some took longer. The overall delivery timelines met our expectations.

What was your primary form of communication with Planet Argon?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

From the initial conversation I had with Robby, I felt very comfortable with Planet Argon's technical capabilities and their previous experience with similar projects. Everyone we met with took the time to understand where we were and where we were going. They offered specific guidance without ever trying to push us into a direction that didn't match our goals.

The level of talent in the people that we worked with was incredible. They were onboard and making meaningful contributions in the first week. They were able to drive the project forward while teaching and mentoring our internal team, which is exactly what we were hoping for. Complete professionalisim from day one.

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

They completely understood our goals and did all that they could to help us work towards them. There is nothing substantial I can think of that I would have changed.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the e-commerce and digital marketing leader at Applegate, a natural and organic meat company. We’ve been around for over 30 years and are distributed nationally in supermarkets from Whole Foods to Walmart and everybody in between. My team handles all of our e-commerce business, including how we show up on retailer platforms and last-mile providers like Instacart. We’re also responsible for all our digital marketing, including the website.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Planet Argon?

We were doing web development in-house and wanted to reallocate our resources toward our e-commerce business.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Planet Argon has been supplementing our existing staff, and over time, they’ve taken on all our web development needs. We’ve done one complete site rebuild with them 8 years ago. Most of what they do is on retainer monthly, and we have constant projects of maintaining and improving the site. 

We provided quite a bit of content for the rebuild, but they built the site from scratch. During that implementation, they put us on a new CMS. The site has quite a few third-party tools integrated with it, such as product locators, product review plug-ins, and digital coupons. We have around half a dozen different third-party vendors supplying some kind of service to the website.

When consumers come to our website, the majority of the traffic is unique users driven there from their search activity, or if we have a campaign running. They’re usually exposed to the brand, looking at different product categories, looking at recipes, and so on. Existing shoppers tend to use the site for our FAQs. We have a lot of consumers with food allergies who need to see which products are safe for them. We also get a lot of consumer inquiries through our help center on the site, where they can search for answers on their own or reach out to our consumer relations team if they have something that isn’t answered in the content on the site.

Some of our consumers have very specific questions and need to speak to a representative. The team handles all the security and coordinates with our parent company, which has some stringent security requirements. They have to ensure we’re compliant with corporate expectations.

What is the team composition?

My team works most directly with them. The person I have the most contact with is Michael, the software delivery manager. He’s the project manager for all the work we send to the team. My team deals primarily with him, but in some cases, they also talk directly with the developers.

How did you come to work with Planet Argon?

We had some specific requirements. The existing site was built with Ruby on Rails, which made it a smaller pool of qualified agencies. We talked to a couple of different vendors and independent contractors. We were looking at all kinds of options, and through searching, we found Planet Argon. They met all our technical and business requirements. When we talked with them, we were impressed with their process and the questions they asked. They wanted to understand the brand, which made it feel like we could develop a meaningful partnership.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent approximately $1.2–$1.5 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2016, and the partnership is ongoing. In a month or so, we’re kicking off a major rebuild.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Conversions for us include using the product locator, signing up for our email, downloading a coupon, and illustrating purchase intent. I also think of success in terms of things that are a little harder to quantify, like the aesthetic look and feel of the site. Planet Argon has been able to reflect the brand’s style and tone.

In general, they’ve been very good at bringing issues to us preemptively. For example, they’ve told us there’s a major CMS upgrade coming that we need to execute this year. They’re very good at seeing things that are on the horizon and advising us. They get our input on what we want to do about it. They’ve always been very responsive and capable of remedying bugs in development or things that we want to improve.

How did Planet Argon perform from a project management standpoint?

We used Jira for a long time and are now using a similar tool. The team is always transparent with us about what tickets or issues are being worked on and who they’re assigned to. My internal team inputs our comments and feedback directly there, so it really works for us.

We meet regularly and communicate frequently through the Jira tool, so there’s a lot of collaboration at a high level and on a day-to-day basis.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I've been impressed with their ability to deliver things on time and on budget. Typically, if anything goes over budget, it’s because we’ve changed the scope or added ideas along the way. They’re very disciplined in that regard.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They've spent time understanding our brand and business goals, and they educate themselves on our brand, mission, and style so that they have some context. When you request things, they understand the bigger picture and can make suggestions and build on ideas in a way that fits the brand. That's a really important part of the process, that you don't always get that with the partner; they might be happy to just execute requests and don't have that level of intimacy or familiarity. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CEO of Newspaper Club

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Print on demand newspapers

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Planet Argon to accomplish?

• Maintenance, upgrades and feature development

SOLUTION

How did you find Planet Argon?

Online Search

Why did you select Planet Argon over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Other

How many teammates from Planet Argon were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Ongoing maintenance of a legacy Rails system

Bug fixes and code clean-ups

New feature developments

Ruby and Rails upgrades

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The tasks and project management are really efficiently run by Michael, our PM. The developers communicate frequently and are very easy to work with as they look into the problem. We usually stay within our retainer budget, and any overages are discussed beforehand.

Our system is in a much better shape since we started working with Planet Argon, and we do not lose time or business to outages.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

There is a simple but totally effective project management process where we receive a weekly report (short and transparent) and have a weekly meeting. This meeting is generally less than 30 minutes, is super-relaxed but runs really well. The whole team is extremely easy to deal with - they always take our requests seriously and work really hard to solve the problems. 

Communication around tasks and tickets is all done through JIRA - this works really well. Just enough info but not too much.

What was your primary form of communication with Planet Argon?

• In-Person Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

They are so relaxed and friendly, but they are also amazing developers and fantastic project managers. They make hard things look effortless. They took us seriously when no one else would and made our lives a million times easier through their diligence.

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

Clone Michael ;)

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Director of Product of Applied Educational Systems

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We develop digital curriculum systems for Health Science and Business Education teachers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Planet Argon to accomplish?

• Review our Ruby on Rails code.
• Build out an upgrade path.
• Upgrade our system with minimal disruption.

SOLUTION

How did you find Planet Argon?

Online Search

Why did you select Planet Argon over others?

• High ratings
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Company values aligned

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

A Ruby on Rails upgrade assessment including a code audit, will be presented to company and highlight the following areas:

• An upgrade assessment for the current rails version
• Audit of current and forked Ruby Gems for compatibility with an upgrade
• A risk assessment, and mitigation recommendations, for upgrading to a new Rails version
• An upgrade roadmap and proposed schedule

A Code Audit of:

• Setup documentation / onboarding
• External dependencies
• Rails conventions
• Routing
• Asset Management
• Test coverage
• Continuous Integration

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

• Audit of current and forked Ruby Gems for compatibility with and upgrade
• A risk assessment, and migration recommendations, for upgrading to a new Rails version
• An upgrade roadmap and proposed schedule.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

They were very hands-on and kept us well-informed throughout the process.

What was your primary form of communication with Planet Argon?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

They are truly passionate developers, easy to work with, and we genuinely had fun working with them.

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

No they exceeded expectations.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am an executive of Imago

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Providing K-12 students with social emotional learning curriculum; it’s what we do.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Planet Argon to accomplish?

• Outsource CTO function
• Review current codebase and stack setup
• Small development work, if needed

SOLUTION

How did you find Planet Argon?

Referral

Why did you select Planet Argon over others?

• Referred to me
• Other

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

60 Day Goals:

• Planet Argon will create a transition plan with V2 Solutions for taking responsibility of emergency support
• Planet Argon will investigate and attempt to resolve the performance issues associated with publishing
• Planet Argon should have a good understanding of the IMAGO application, hosting, and business
• Planet Argon will assist V2 Solutions with prioritization of work
• Planet Argon will provide IMAGO with an assessment of V2 Solutions team performance and skillset
• Planet Argon will assist IMAGO in making a decision on which development company to partner with (V2 Solutions or another)
• Planet Argon will establish, and document, a uniform set of processes and tools for Planet Argon and V2 Solutions
• Planet Argon will establish a good working relationship with IMAGO’s UI Developer (John)

Post-60 Day Goals:

• Planet Argon will contribute to technical strategy discussions with the IMAGO team
• Planet Argon will drive discussions with IMAGO on the future development of the application
• Planet Argon will continue to investigate outstanding performance issues with the goal of resolving these before the new school year begins
• Planet Argon will assess the current hosting and deployment process and advise IMAGO on any recommended improvements

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

• Suggestions for improvement in current codebase and setup
• Getting our development vendor on track with minimum development requirements
• Maintaining spend efficiency

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

They deliver and are responsive.

What was your primary form of communication with Planet Argon?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

We are impressed by how quickly they are able to get in and make some analysis and start providing real time recommendations for managing our development vendor. We were on the path of terminating a long relationship with this vendor and with Planet Argon's help we saved them and the relationship.

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

Nothing significant enough to note at the time of this review.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Director, Digital Marketing of West Dermatology

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

West Dermatology / Platinum Dermatology Partners provides medical, cosmetic and surgical dermatology, as well as skincare products.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Planet Argon to accomplish?

• Stabilize our Ruby On Rails website application.
• Develop mission-critical application enhancements.
• Provide routine and regular maintenance to our website application.

SOLUTION

How did you find Planet Argon?

Other

Why did you select Planet Argon over others?

Close to my geographic location, Great culture fit, Good value for cost

What was the size of Planet Argon’s team?

2-5 Employees

What was your primary form of communication with Planet Argon?

Virtual Meeting

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Transfer and manage site/application files and hosting. Stabilize broken components and deliver on a number of needed enhancements, including online scheduling modules and variable content. Launch new sites on RoR platform.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

• Search engine rankings
• Supported practices on the application
• Site enhancements completed

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

The project was to help stabilize our exiting RoR application, and then to help build in some enhancements/correct some tech debt once they were fully supporting the team. One of the first major enhancements and deliverables was the integration of self-scheduling application through a third party to our website. Our internal teams did not give us a lot of time, but the PA team landed the enhancements on time!

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

While their approach to customer serivce and client relations is great, what I find most impressive is their ability to help develop solutions in creative ways. None of the complex content issues were a problem, and the team was always open to new information/new requirements regardless of where we were in the process.

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

The PA team experienced some turn over at the beginning of the relationship, but I'm not sure it was something they could avoid. It slowed down the work temporarily, but the team more than made up for it over the long haul.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am a manager at one of the offices at the headquarters of an international religious institution, mainly dealing with our custom software and publications.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Planet Argon?

The development and maintenance team we’ve been working with for 12 years had to retire, so we were looking for a vendor to maintain and further improve our suite of several custom apps.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Planet Argon is our primary custom app development partner, providing us with Ruby on Rails development and maintenance, code rebuilding, and ongoing support.

The team initially brought in several developers to lead a major app for legislative work. They finished that project in eight months using the Sprint methodology, learned how to support all of our apps, and transferred them to their system.

Some of their current tasks also include, firewall monitoring, security updates, technical error resolution, and sprints for developing specific improvements we request, as well as improvements they suggest.

What is the team composition?

We’ve mainly been working with Gary (COO), Michael (Digital Project Manager), a lead developer, and five other developers.

How did you come to work with Planet Argon?

We came across Planet Argon through online research, and our previous vendor helped us talk to them to see if they could be a good fit — which turned out to be true.

How much have you invested with them?

So far, we’ve invested about $500,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing partnership started in June of 2021.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We measure the partnership's success through the accomplishments of tickets throughout the development process, and for maintenance tasks as well. In addition they send regular reports and we have regular meetings. They are also amenable to ad hoc meetings at need. 

In addition to numerous improvements to our entire suite of custom applications, they also inherited an incomplete application which they finished in time for a large conference that we held, working to a hard deadline. Their time estimates have been accurate and they communicate well. Also they have provided creative and useful suggestions for improvements.

How did Planet Argon perform from a project management standpoint?

Planet Argon is consistently responsive and delivers their tasks on time. They contact me when aspects of the project need to be discussed and provide me with a detailed approach to their plans and actions.

We utilize JIRA for project management and ticketing, and typically communicate through Slack and Zoom.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I am impressed at their ability to take on our multiple, complicated existing apps and learn them quickly and well, and quite happy with the numerous improvements they have made for us. Also, their attention to maintenance and support tasks in addition to development has been great.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It took a while for us to find a middle ground on how to structure and categorize our financial reporting and payments with them, but we’ve since worked it out, and we’re happy with where we are now.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

My advice is to take advantage of their willingness to meet on a regular basis to stay on top of the projects consistently.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the general manager of The Gnomon Workshop, a company located in Los Angeles, California, providing professional training for artists. We have prerecorded tutorials of over 300 artists supporting our platform. On it, users can purchase a monthly or annual subscription, log in, and access an entire virtual library of courses where they can learn about 3D design, traditional design, game design for engines like Unreal, and more.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Planet Argon?

A different company helped us develop and maintain our website. However, at some point around March 2021, that company was acquired by another one, so they wouldn’t be able to work with us anymore; they were closing their business. Therefore, we needed to find a new company to take care of our website.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Planet Argon has been in charge of our website maintenance and development needs since our former provider got acquired. Firstly, they worked with us to understand what we needed — they wouldn’t build something from scratch but take care of something created by another company.

We initially discussed our needs regarding the maintenance of our website and application, as well as future web development. Planet Argon took the first month to understand our needs in detail, and they then assessed all the information they got from our previous provider. It was a lot of legacy information. Still, by the third month, we were already operating as if nothing had happened.

Currently, Planet Argon helps us make changes and updates to our servers as needed, mainly using Ruby on Rails as the technology stack. They know how our system works, so they also suggest important changes needed to keep everything operating seamlessly.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with 4–5 people from Planet Argon, including a couple of developers, a project manager, and a couple of people for ongoing help desk support. However, depending on the complexity of development tasks, they bring in more people if needed.

How did you come to work with Planet Argon?

Our former company referred us to them. They already knew our needs, so they sent us a list of possible companies that could help us out, and Planet Argon was included in that list.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $80,000–$100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in March 2021, and our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Working with Planet Argon has been a great experience. The transition from our previous provider to them was very smooth, and they took care of everything within a very short period of time. Moreover, our engagement has been successful because, thanks to them, our platform keeps growing. We’ve assigned them some development tasks, and we’ve been very pleased by how our site has been growing.

How did Planet Argon perform from a project management standpoint?

Planet Argon is very communicative and great at staying on time and on budget. They’re also very open to suggestions, and they make changes quickly. We use Jira for project management, where we can communicate about the project. Additionally, they email me weekly reports on the project’s progress, and we have biweekly Zoom meetings.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Planet Argon is very precise in their work, and they always provide me with various solution options to choose from. They’re also very responsive, so it is like working with them in person; I never wait for them to respond, and they’re always on top of everything.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, they’re great. The only challenge I’ve had was using Jira initially. I had never used Jira before, and I felt it was very advanced for a company like ours. However, it only took me a couple of weeks to get used to it, and it is now very easy for us to use. Still, it has nothing to do with Planet Argon’s work.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be clear on everything and provide them with as much information as possible.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the technical delivery director within the brand marketing technology branch of a sporting goods company. I look after, implement, and support various tech solutions at our global headquarters.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Planet Argon?

We’re creating long term development plans, two years out. Our challenge was to take a current keynote-based communication process and turn it into a data-driven solution that would be available globally for users. We were developing a web app, and had the backend engineering capacity, but needed a UI/UX frontend team.  

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We provided a technical style guide and documentation because, as a recognizable brand, it was really important that the product reflected our design standards. Following our wireframes, they helped bring a data-driven MVP to life.

We built the app using React and an AWS cloud environment for the frontend, and Amazon DocumentDB for the database. It was a very collaborative project and the app needed to appear as if it came from a cohesive team. They focused on the frontend UI/UX development while we worked on the backend.

Now, the app allows leadership to create long-term marketing funds through a database-driven online tool, rather than manually keeping track of campaign details. Additionally, the platform marries brand concepts to the product it’s going to support.

What is the team composition?

Our primary contact was Gary (COO, Planet Argon), particularly for strategy and contracts. We then had a project manager, two frontend developers, and a UI/UX specialist working on the project.

How did you come to work with Planet Argon?

They’ve worked with other teams within our company before, and we heard some great things about them. The collaborative approach they take made them a good fit for our team.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $250,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project started in September 2018 and we wrapped up in November 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

There are a lot of really excited users who love the product we delivered. We’ve received a lot of positive feedback. Currently, it’s only being used here at HQ, but we plan on global activation next year. It’s very cross-functional and cuts across sales, brand merchandise, distribution, and supply-chain. We believe we’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg in how the app will impact the company.

We’re really happy with the designs, and Planet Argon followed our standards very well. They were great at providing feedback and offering different options while achieving the same end result. They clearly have a smart team and are experts at what they do.

If I had to recruit and establish a team myself, the project would have taken much longer. Although this project has been completed, we absolutely plan to use their services again in the future.

How did Planet Argon perform from a project management standpoint?

They adjusted to our own project management style and followed an agile methodology. They were flexible and willing to work with us, making them a great collaborative partner. We used Jira tickets to manage tasks, Slack to enable communication between all of the engineers, and Confluence for documentation. However, there were a few points when communication could have been improved.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their UI/UX designer, Genevieve (UX Developer, Planet Argon), was a huge standout. She brought our vision to life and the designs were excellent.

Are there any areas they could improve?

When teams from two different cultures work together, sometimes there are road bumps. Overall things went smoothly, but they could have been a little more proactive and communicative. Often, we’d be planning things, and at the last minute, we’d discover that one of their team members wasn’t in the office and that portion of the project couldn’t be completed right away. In that way, they could’ve been more pragmatic when it comes to communication.