Pragtechnologies

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the development manager for PelicanCorp, a software vendor. We provide software services for the global market to keep people safe and to protect expensive infrastructure assets. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Pragtechnologies?

We have six different product lines and lacked the workforce to address the market opportunities that we saw. We had previously tried a different company, but the costs were too high based on what we were trying to achieve. We needed a way to staff up at a more affordable cost.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Pragtechnologies does a mixture of full-stack development. Their team works on specified bugs, adding specific features, or as we branched out, developing entirely new products. They become the developers within sprint teams, and we meet with them weekly and daily to talk about the design process. They then handle the implementation of it. 

We are a fully .NET stack—we have used Visual Studio with a classic .NET core. We started with a SQL server, but we have since moved everything to a Vue.js frontend and several associated UI libraries. We’re looking to implement a UI framework to unify our look and feel across all our product lines.

What is the team composition?

I believe there are currently nine people. We had as many as 13 at one stage.

How did you come to work with Pragtechnologies?

We were looking for a company that didn’t have an international profile, and we found Pragtechnologies listed on a website. They were young, upcoming, and didn’t have the constraints that big-name companies have to go through. By going to a small local company, we can get to have much more say about how things get done.

How much have you invested in them?

We spend an average of $16,000–$18,000 a month.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in April 2017, and the work is still ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The transition went as well as we could have expected. Our team brought up Pragtechnologies’ resources to be a team of hungry high-performers that exceed expectations and strive to achieve our goals. We’ve brought Pragtechnologies into the product ownership process and have prospered from it. Their staff was responsible for building one product for our client independently. Our client gave us a great deal of praise for their work.

How did Pragtechnologies perform from a project management standpoint?

We use email and team chat sessions to talk directly. Pragtechnologies can reach out to us at any time of the day. We have a sprint planning meeting, and they have a sprint design and review where they talk about what they are going to do to solve things they have been asked to solve. We also have daily stand-ups over video chat so that we can see everyone’s face and reactions, and we have sprint showcases and reviews every two weeks as well.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Pragtechnologies’ staff is full of potential. They are young and enthusiastic people who will work with us to achieve what we ask for.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The resources we’re working with from Pragtechnologies weren’t as used to our formal processes at first, such as establishing teams and team leads. They’ve been quick and eager to learn, however.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be very direct about establishing processes, expectations, and reviews. Budget a certain amount of time and effort to educate Pragtechnologies and get more out than you have to put in. When I worked with an offshore company previously, it took two and a half years before we got to that stage. The same process was less than 18 months with the Pragtechnologies team.