PSL Corp.

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

There are many things to highlight in terms of the results. The software solution has allowed us to migrate all of our catalog sales. Previously, in 2010–2011 everything in catalog sales was done on paper. Our clients made orders through physical order forms. What we did was to digitalize those orders.

Since we started to evolve this software towards a more digital process, we have managed to migrate it. In 2011, 10% of our sales started to come from the digital world. The next year, it was 30%, and today we count with 80% of our sales being done digitally.

Thanks to having implemented this system, we have been able to migrate 80% of our sales to digital formats. Five years ago, we didn’t imagine this would happen. Today, all of our sales come through digital media through our platform and this is a supremely positive win! This is one of the main indicators.

In 2010, with our previous systems, we had the capacity to bill more or less 1,000–2,000 orders, or 3,000 daily orders maximum because of the capacity of our information system. Today we are having peaks; for example, this season has had more than 10,000–15,000 orders. As I mentioned, we have tripled. We wouldn’t have been able to sustain this level of business growth using JD Edwards.

This new system allowed us to support the triplication of our business; sometimes it’s even quadrupled. Today, we are using more or less half of the capacity it has. The system, as we planned it in the beginning, supports around 30,000 to 40,000 daily orders. We are only filling 10,000–15,000. An important item is that this system is billing around 2 to 3 million annual orders. In previous systems, this was not possible. 

How did PSL Corp. perform from a project management standpoint?

Another important milestone is that PSL, as a provider of Agile methodologies, has allowed us to have early victories and faster speeds that have been very different to the projects we used to do before which were very traditional. Today, we are implementing close to 20 annual projects with them. The power of being able to implement so many projects in a year is possible thanks to the good relationship we have with this provider. The Agile methodologies have been a big win inside Novaventa because we used to spend a year implementing a project, and today, we easily implement things in 1 or 2 months. The longer projects that we have implemented with this provider have lasted 3 months. 

Previously, all of the project management was done following PMI [Project Management Institute]. When we changed to the Agile methodology, we mixed PMI topics with an Agile method. Today, there are tools that the provider uses that allows us to do all the project management. There is a Scrum master on behalf of PSL. She is in charge of coordinating with the development team. We synchronize our team with the Scrum master from PSL with tools that support Agile such as JIRA, Confluence, and Trello. We do daily stand-up meetings, retrospectives, and everything else in that methodology. 

What did you find most impressive about PSL Corp.?

There's something that really grabs my attention about this provider. The added value they provide is that they deliver what we ask of them. Every time I send the business requirements, they deliver more than what was expected. I know that they will always meet my expectations. 

I always tell them, “Please understand that as a business leader, I will ask you to solve my need. I always expect you not only to do what I ask but that you give me a better solution. I want you to propose things, to surprise me with various alternatives to my needs." In these 5 years, they have always managed to surprise me. They are always proposing relevant things and updated technologies, and I think this is what I want to highlight that they do really well. They don't only deliver what the client is asking for, but they generate added value.

Are there any areas PSL Corp. could improve?

No, honestly, the relationship with them has been really good.

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

Before we started working with PSL, customers that worked with the Routing software I am managing right now were not happy with it. The legacy software had a lot of issues with customers running late with deliveries. After we started working with PSL, things started changing. Satisfaction from the customers is now higher. We even have new business opportunities. It is really better than what it was before.

How did PSL Corp perform from a project management standpoint?

We have a good track of what is being delivered and planned. Some sprints may miss a few things to deliver, but other sprints deliver more. It’s flexible. We do not have all the requirements at the beginning for them to go forward and plan the work for the entire year. We usually move and play a lot with priorities. It is hard to have metrics, but we know the speed of the team and know how many hours they work.

We use a platform called JIRA which records activities, implementations, bugs, assignment priority, plan times, and actual execution times. That software also has several metrics and diagrams that we use on a regular basis to see the accomplishment of each sprint. We work with them mainly using Scrum as the methodology.

What did you find most impressive about PSL Corp?

The main thing to highlight from PSL is that they follow very good methodologies. Since they have been certified as a CMMI for a long time, they have several processes and standards within the company. These processes help produce better software quality.

Are there any areas PSL Corp could improve?

None. We are doing fine. We do not have any major issues with them.

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

It’s been difficult to measure. Probably the biggest successes were a couple of projects in the first year that they ran with. We needed a kiosk application to do a very specific function. We gave them the requirements and a couple of months later, we had working software. Similarly, they did some new modules in our OMS application. It’s more difficult to track now that they’re embedded in our team, though. Since we have collaborated to build software, we have been producing at a very high level. The bug count is very low with PSL. When they give us software, it’s quality software. When there are bugs, they get fixed quickly.

How did PSL Corp perform from a project management standpoint?

In the last year, we’ve adopted the Scrum process and PSL was a big part of that. PSL’s process was something to behold. We learned a lot from it, picking up a lot of pointers from the way they did Scrum versus just reading about Scrum. We were able to see it firsthand as they were building software for us. That was always very nice. Also, when we needed estimates, they were very quick to get us accurate estimates and then deliver upon them.

What did you find most impressive about PSL Corp?

PSL is really the only offshore development team that I’ve had any chance to work with so I don’t have anything to compare it to. I am a very satisfied customer, though. We’ve been very happy with our relationship with PSL. We were impressed with the front-end rewrite project. Our in-house staff had very little experience with new frameworks and they were able to help us identify the correct frameworks to use, and then start building first prototypes and actual pages of the software application using new technologies. PSL even did a few proof of concept modules with different types of technology so we could do make comparisons. That was very beneficial since we didn’t have that knowledge in-house. PSL has a UX team at their disposal, so there were a couple times where they were able to go and talk to their in-house usability experts and point us in the right direction.

Are there any areas PSL Corp could improve?

An area where we’ve had a couple complaints was continuity in the teams. There was some turnover when we were really getting into a groove with the team we had. As a result, some of the key employees that we liked either left PSL or moved to a different project within PSL. We would have preferred to have some of that continuity, but that’s a problem that every development shop faces. The same applies to our in-house staff. I’d prefer to have the same group the whole way through, but people come and go. We had a few different bodies moving around from 1 team to another or people leaving the company altogether.