The Smyth Group

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re an HR service provider, and I’m the senior director of the IT development process.

What challenge were you trying to address with The Smyth Group?

The Smyth Group is our consultant company.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The Smyth Group helps us with UX guidance, which is one of their most interesting roles. They’ve acquired not only expertise on our business and products, but they’ve also come in with expertise from the industry standards. Most of our full-time employees have been here forever, and we’ve not necessarily had the time or the bandwidth to keep up with the industry's best practices, especially when it comes to UX and Angular development.

I serve as the Scrum master, project manager, and other roles — I’m a jack of all trades. The Smyth Group is very self-managed and self-governed. They always check with me, but they’re very proactive in telling me when a code needs to be updated.

We have a very complex business model. When an employer sends us an applicant to do a background check on, we need to verify that all of the information that they're giving us is correct. We analyze the information and see what other questions we need to ask them.

If an applicant is from a determined country and is applying for a position, we need to do a complete background check within that country, including criminal records. We have several analysis rules, and The Smyth Group has come up with very elegant ways to handle some of our extreme complexities — no other forms in the world need to do this, but we do.

They’ve also done mobile app development for us. We have another business similar to this one, and they helped us create the app.

What is the team composition?

We work with three people from The Smyth Group, but we’ve worked with up to seven people at some point. We have one person that has been giving us UX guidance for various products and projects for about seven years. Another person helps us with Angular development, and a third person does QA for us. We’ve also worked with various developers and project managers throughout my time on this project.

How did you come to work with The Smyth Group?

I believe that there were outer relationships between my coworkers and their team members, and the relationship started before I joined the project. I brought in other UX people, but my boss told me that The Smyth Group had a UX person, so we gave them a try — it was fantastic, and we’ve not let them go.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $200,000–$1 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with The Smyth Group at some point around the year 2014, and the engagement is ongoing.

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

The quality of The Smyth Group’s work is fantastic. I’ve wanted to hire 2–3 individuals that work on their team, but they won’t let me. One person left them, but I know that they’ll replace them. I don’t have to worry about it, which is great. They also cover the people that go on vacations, which is really cool.

We try to keep confidential the fact that we use outside consultants, so we don’t have feedback on their work from people outside the company.

How did The Smyth Group perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicate mostly through Slack and Zoom, and InVision is one of the tools that The Smyth Group uses for the UX products. That tool is probably the best one that they’ve helped us with, and it’s my favorite.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The Smyth Group’s professionalism is impressive. Additionally, they all seem to have the same sense of humor, which makes work fun. They’re a fun group and get the work done.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can't think of anything that The Smyth Group could improve on.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Spend the time upfront clearly defining what it is that you’re trying to accomplish. The clearer you are with your expectations, the better will be the products that you’ll have developed.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CEO of an automotive inventory management and marketing company. Our national team helps dealers recondition and market vehicles - focusing on bringing vehicles to market as quickly as possible.

For what projects/services did your company hire The Smyth Group, and what were your goals?

We are looking to develop a web and mobile platform that will help our national field team manage and process clients' inventory for sale quickly and efficiently. We've partnered with The Smyth Group to build a product that allows our team to manage our client's inventory more efficiently, perfecting the process and increasing transparency in our services, to help bring vehicles online faster than ever before.

How did you select The Smyth Group and what were the deciding factors?

We wanted to partner with a company that had experience working with large enterprise companies, that understand the entire development process - we wanted a firm that does more than just write code. We wanted to dive deep into the needs of our employees, to better understand the why, and to build a product that will change the industry. We believe, and have confirmed, The Smyth Group is delivering on our wants and vision.

They are helping us create, not just develop, the future product that will take our company to the next level.

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

We needed to develop a platform that supported 500+ employees in the field, manage million of vehicles on a near real-time basis. We started working on the why and how - that meant sending The Smyth Group into the field to shadow our team members, seeing the job from the employee perspective. We used that information to create detailed diagrams, wireframes, documentation that clearly explained the purpose for our platform.

Our teams met every week, reviewing the UI, confirming and reconfirming the goals of the app, and what value we were trying to create. We used Adobe, Zoom, Notion, and many other tools/platforms to keep our teams in sync.

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

Every week we worked with project managers, designers, UX, developers, and other stakeholders in the process - not to mention the owner of the company. Each week we had leaders from different departments joining the calls to demo and discuss the progress they were making. Watching the product come to life every week was very rewarding.

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

The team was very intentional with their weekly meetings, following the timeline, updating it each week as the project moved forward, and resetting goals as we closed each sprint. We never had deliverables not met or missed goals. Their team was on top of the roadmap and made sure to communicate any changes or updates.

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

We love building products, and we want to enjoy the process - Let's laugh, smile, have fun and create stuff that will change an industry. The Smyth Group has made this project fun and more rewarding because of the way their team and our team interact. We will create a better product because of their team and the partnership we have.

We used simple tools to communicate, like email, Zoom, Notion, Adobe, and other tools you would expect. Nothing was over done and that makes it easy to focus on the project goals.

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

The culture, experience, and their ability to quickly understand what we were trying to accomplish. They went all-in on understanding our business and what we wanted to accomplish... and because of their process, many times they were presenting features that our team had not thought of! I am amazed by their organization, documentation, and level of experience to achieve our vision. 

Even when we struggled to explain our ideas, they figured out how to make it clear and present the perfect solution.

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

At this point, I would not recommend they change anything. Its been one of the better experiences I have experienced to date.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CSO of an automotive company.

What challenge were you trying to address with The Smyth Group?

We were looking for a platform to handle our inventory management. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

The Smyth Group is helping us design and build a tool for our representatives to intake data, information, and pictures of vehicles. They’re developing an AWS software that covers our entire process from start to finish, from the moment the rep is out on a customer’s lot to the moment it gets uploaded to the server and distributed to multiple websites.

They’re also helping us with some marketing strategies. We give them the colors we want, and they come up with various color schemes, tell us how to put it together and how to package it nicely.

What is the team composition?

I’ve worked with two project managers, two lead designers, and over 10 individuals that have given input into the design and programming language aspect. We’ve also worked with the database team and the injury design team. It has been a number of different teams that specialize in their one field.

How did you come to work with The Smyth Group?

The Smyth Group was referred to us by word of mouth. We interviewed different companies and, after having the initial call, we felt that The Smyth Group aligned with their approach in how they go about bidding up the work. 

The way their contract read, as far as who owns the IP and the fact that they utilize staff only in America, aligned more with what we wanted.  We got to speak with their developers and designers that live here in America. It was important to us to support that type of local work.

We built a rapport with Jamie (CEO) and another member and felt comfortable utilizing them for the project. We decided to use their experience as well as their familiarity with the automotive sector.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in July 2020, and the partnership is ongoing. We have plans of releasing our first version in June 2021 and will continue to work with them for ongoing projects and updates.

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

What happens in our industry is that the way things have been done is the way things are always done. The Smyth Group has been able to eliminate a lot of the features that people don’t touch or need to touch on a daily basis, and only gave us information that was important.

We had their lead designers go out and ride along with our reps to experience and get all aspects of what it was like to be a rep for a day. They made all the suggestions, based on that experience. 

They’ve made the process more user-friendly. You can innovate to an extent at the expense of someone else. However, this is not the case for The Smyth Group. They have innovated in a way that doesn’t disrupt our business workflows, meets the management ownership expectations, and also makes our reps more efficient. 

How did The Smyth Group perform from a project management standpoint?

I would give The Smyth Group a perfect score on project management. They’ve met all deadlines and are always reporting the project’s process. Due to the COVID-19 situation, we’ve only been communicating through video conferences using Zoom and Google Meet.

I didn’t realize the benefit of the strategy that they have. They ask really great questions and collaborate among their team members to really narrow down what the end-user is trying to accomplish. I find their collaboration, data retrieval, and questioning of our product and what we’re trying to do as keys in making this great decision.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The most impressive aspect is their ability to ask questions and get to the bottom of something. For companies that don’t have any technical background or a CTO, like us, to be able to communicate with them in a way that is understandable for non-technical people is really important. Another impressive aspect is their ability to help us think through the process of what we’re trying to accomplish. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

This is something that we need to potentially improve on our side. However, as a company, you can estimate a completion time for a project based on the information you received, and the information they received from us wasn’t complete enough to give an initial timeline.

We initially had a timeline for completion in February, which now we’ve moved to June. We realized much later how much larger our project was than we anticipated.  

Any advice for potential customers?

To have someone technical, either a technical document or someone on staff within your company to help run the project, that will probably save you time and money.

Otherwise, The Smyth Group is fully capable of doing everything by just extending the time and cost of it. The better blueprint you have, the more success on anything you’re going to do.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner of n IT consulting company.

What challenge were you trying to address with The Smyth Group?

One of my clients needed help changing the application they’d been using for years as it didn’t really fit their needs. The Smyth Group is helping us with this project.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our client’s old app was written in Microsoft Access and wasn’t very scalable. There had been situations where only one user could use it at a time, so our first goal was to take and enhance parts of the application that did function well and grow it organically. 

The Smyth Group has helped us rewrite the app into a complete, self-contained .NET application connected to SQL on the backend. At first, Doug (Product Engineer) got to know the product and started fixing a few aspects of it. He then went into building the actual .NET application. It took us longer than expected to work around a lot of the unknowns inside the Spaghetti code, but once we got through all that, everything was in pretty good shape. 

We’re now in phase two and are adding some features that will help the client moving forward. 

What is the team composition?

There was a point in the project where we needed to get other resources to jump in and help, but for the most part, we’re just working with one person, Doug.

How did you come to work with The Smyth Group?

I’ve known Jamie (CEO) for quite some time. He and I, and a few people that work for him, have been involved in volunteer work over the years. I knew that they had the expertise, so I called The Smyth Group to see if they had the resources to tackle my client’s needs. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent an amount in the $50,000–$200,000 range.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working with The Smyth Group for almost two years now. We started having conversations in late 2018 and kicked off the project around April 2019. The project is still ongoing as we’re now moving into the second phase.

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

The Smyth Group has definitely helped cut down the billing errors on the app and saved our client money. We’ve made decisions that ultimately eliminated places where errors would be made, so it’s definitely made the client feel more comfortable with their business.

Mistakes are common due to the fast turnaround times within the transportation and logistics industry where my client is placed. For the most part, though, their billing team’s day-to-day operations have been simplified so my client has been generally secure around that aspect. 

How did The Smyth Group perform from a project management standpoint?

We don’t really have a need for a project manager as my client has their own team that communicates their vision directly to Doug. They also conduct weekly meetings and use an internal application to manage the workload. Doug also knows my client well enough now to make suggestions that get to the root of a problem. 

I’m able to call Robert (General Manager) whenever there are issues. Everybody gets busy and distracted by juggling multiple projects, but he’s always been great and can always help us get back on track. The Smyth Group checks in with me fairly regularly as well to make sure that they understand what’s expected of them. We discuss what we’ll need in the next phase of the project so that their team knows what kind of workload to expect. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

The Smyth Group is honest and forthright. Sometimes, there are things that are difficult to tell them, but we can expect our concerns to be heard and treated professionally. Their team is able to come up with long-term solutions to any issue that comes up. 

Everybody’s been kind and friendly, and we all get along because we have the same objectives, so it feels like a partnership. They take care of me as I take care of my own client. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I would want the team to keep us updated on what’s going on, as there were a few times when, as things got busy and overwhelming, they would drop off the radar. It only happened a few times over the course of the project, so it’s not egregious and, other than that, I don’t think I have anything else to critique. The issues we’ve come across are pretty normal to run into with this kind of project.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I worked with The Smyth Group when I was the director of e-commerce optimization at a digital experience company. We were system integrators for Salesforce, Commerce Cloud, and Magento. We also provided maintenance work within the e-commerce software area.

What challenge were you trying to address with The Smyth Group?

One of the things that we always came up against was a lot of time was spent on QA before launching a new site. There were problems with custom implementations and development, so we wanted to keep an eye on the course of life of a site, even post-launch. We wanted to see whether the site was operating as needed and make sure we weren’t causing any ongoing issues when adding new functionalities.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Most of the project was consulting services and training from The Smyth Group. We had an established QA department that handled most of the work already. However, our team really needed to be trained in a new methodology language on how development and QA work in conjunction. 

They did training with us on multiple occasions over the course of 3–4 months. They came through, talked to us, went over the overall core concept, and evaluated what we were doing within our business and software development practices. Their team came back with solutions on how to integrate our developer-first QA program. 

Every few months, they would come back to check in with us and see how we were doing using the program. If we had questions, we could work with them on that. They allowed us to continue to develop on the work that had been initially done. 

What is the team composition?

We worked with around 6–7 people during different stages of the project; including Jamie (CEO & Owner), development managers, front-end developers, QA people, requirement gathering people, and a few project managers within The Smyth Group.

How did you come to work with The Smyth Group?

I had a previous experience working with members from The Smyth Group on some volunteer projects, previous companies, and in different places. I already knew who they were and their methodology, so I asked them to work with me on this project.

How much have you invested with them?

Most of the cost was handled by our controller, but I remember it was around $20,000–$30,000 in total. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from around March–June 2017.

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

It’s a little hard to determine metrics from a quantitative standpoint because our project required a lot of retrofitting, and it took us time to implement. However, throughout the course of new builds, we wanted to reduce the time for QA by 10%–25%. In the end, we achieved a reduction of around 25%–30%, which was helpful. 

From a qualitative standpoint, The Smyth Group really helped our team reevaluate how we thought about testing, development, and what the throughput should be. We had gotten a little off there, so it was really helpful to rebuild our team’s understanding of how to move forward.

How did The Smyth Group perform from a project management standpoint?

The Smyth Group’s project management teammates were really on top of everything. I don’t remember interacting with any specific tools; however, they were very easy-going and responsive. If there was any question, they were quick to respond and handle the work.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The Smyths Group’s knowledge and capability is their most impressive aspect. We worked with pretty large brands, products, and high-dollar projects, and they brought us an even higher standard. Their team was really professional, accommodating, and helpful. 

Introducing a new framework could be challenging; however, their team made it easy. They helped us understand why something needed to be done, and what was the importance of it.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The Smyth Group did well working with a lot of our IT staff and other members, however; making changes like this requires an institutional change across the business. I don’t know if we got as much of a long-term institutional change as we needed. I’m not sure if it was dismissed, so it was also our fault in how we adopted the program.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the president and owner of Terrapin Technology Group. We're an IT consulting company, and we provide project-based IT help desk services to small businesses, mainly law firms.

What challenge were you trying to address with The Smyth Group?

We needed to do a major overhaul and refresh our website.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The Smyth Group designed and developed the site from scratch. Aside from the usual refresh of images, we also needed them to make sure the website reflected all our different services and service groups. The first iteration of our site was developed many years ago, and it no longer accurately reflected our organization and the kind of work we provided. With all this in mind, they built a new site that better represents the company and the services we provide. 

The key feature we wanted was tight integration with our marketing push — we needed it to highlight a video archive of our webinars, a recurring and accessible link to access blog entries, social media tie-ins, and so on. We are very proud of our team, so we also wanted to spotlight them by calling attention to how long they’ve been with us and how much experience they have in the IT industry or the legal field. There are unique personalities within our team, so the site also features our hobbies. We believe it makes the site better and more personal. They continue to work on refining the site, which is now nearing its completion.

What is the team composition?

There are usually 4–5 of us in a call, but we primarily work with David (Project Manager) and Nikita (Product Designer), who is the most involved in the day-to-day work. 

How did you come to work with The Smyth Group?

I found them through one of my coworkers at Terrapin, who personally knew Jamie (CEO) and recommended him. That coworker has been with our team for 10 years, so we gave The Smyth Group a shot. We interviewed three different vendors, and we ended up picking The Smyth Group because we felt like they paralleled our company when it came to the people and their personalities, size, approach, and so on. 

How much have you invested with them?

I would say somewhere in the neighborhood of $20,000–$30,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in October 2020, and it’s still ongoing.

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

Their work is absolutely excellent — it’s better than I expected and I have no complaints whatsoever. It’s not live yet, so the clients haven't seen the site; however, the rest of my coworkers who are involved in the project think it’s great. The Smyth Group is instrumental in bringing the site together and highlighting specific details.

How did The Smyth Group perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management is on-point. We don’t use any particular tool, and we communicate through good old email and telephone calls. They’ve been very kind and gracious throughout the project — we’ve had to move some meetings around due to busy schedules, but they were always accommodating. From the start, we all felt a natural synergy between the two organizations; we even plan to collaborate and work together in the future.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The Smyth Group is a knowledgeable team with a unique collection of personalities — they are passionate about their job and the group they work for, which comes across during our meetings. There’s a similar feel at our company. The selling point is really the harmony between our teams; that's probably my favorite aspect of working with them. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there’s nothing they could do better.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Consider them if you need someone to help with web development and design.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Ducerus, where we provide an overall solution to the admissions and financial aid process for parents of high school students.

What challenge were you trying to address with The Smyth Group?

A lot of students have to deal with multiple applications for admission, numerous deadlines, and different requirements. We were trying to determine if we could make a technology-based version of the formula that we use when working one-on-one with students and their parents.

We wanted to create a dashboard that laid all of these out and allowed us to track our meetings with them through detailed notes. The primary piece would be a visual indication of where a student is at in the process and what targets and milestones they needed to reach as they went along.

Through the dashboard, we wanted to see if we could affect change for lots of people, particularly for those who could not afford what we offer in a consulting relationship. We brought on The Smyth Group to help us with this project.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The Smyth Group walked us through how we could go about developing the dashboard. We had the option to have it as an app or a web-based product. We decided to go with a web-based product that was user-friendly and could adjust to mobile viewing. Users would be able to create a user ID and password, and access the dashboard through a computer, phone, or tablet.

Since we were trying to create a one-stop-shop solution, their team helped us with some custom programming and a lot of integrations. For example, through a function similar to Zoom, we could conduct a lot of meetings with students over video. The dashboard would take those peer-to-peer videos and add them to a library. Parents and students could then rewatch the videos and add them to their profile. This required a significant amount of storage, but The Smyth Group got us through that.

Their team also integrated a calendar app where users could schedule their appointments. Students and parents would also be given a checklist to work through for certain colleges or universities. When they have finished everything in the checklist, they have the option to receive notifications about any requirements that they still have to accomplish. 

The Smyth Group used more integrations than custom programming, which was good. They took things off the shield and worked them into the dashboard, and then customized the rest. They showed me a preview of what the final product would look like to our clients, which really helped me, as a visual person, to know what to expect.

How did you come to work with The Smyth Group?

My wife is friends with one of the folks on their team. After having talked to a lot of programming companies, I set up a meeting with Jamie (CEO) and went through my company’s goals and objectives. He walked me through the engagement process in terms of design since I was a neophyte to technology.

Of the three companies that I talked to, The Smyth Group seemed to have the best handle of how to go about the project. Their focus was on the UI and how the consumer was going to engage with the product, which is what sold me on them. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started the process in January 2019. We were finished with the product that we hired them for about four months later, in April 2019. However, we still contact them periodically to take the product in a different direction and build it out with additional components.

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

We used the initial program development to raise capital and were able to demonstrate the UI for our pitch deck. It was pretty huge that we could do a bit of show and tell before going into full production.

Now that we’re rolling out a version for customer interaction, the feedback has been good. Producing a vehicle to keep students on track is big deal, so we’re happy to have something that people are going to feel good about. 

How did The Smyth Group perform from a project management standpoint?

The Smyth Group was really good at moving us from section to section. They had a linear operation — from us talking about the mission, to discussing what the UI would look like, to enumerating the specific needs, and then to bringing in an architect that could explain the integrations. It wasn’t like a handoff; they walked us through the entire development and supervised the transition from one phase to the next.

Their team used a collaboration tool to track the project milestones and take notes. It was useful for going backwards to talk about key points in the build. They kept on schedule and we met on a regular basis, beginning with a couple of times a week to eventually meeting once a week. 

We could also contact them whenever we had questions or needed to make changes. They were always available, especially when we needed to talk to the UI designer.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They dissected the needs of our business very thoroughly, which I thought was unique. They were very interested in making sure that we hit all the salient points to tie back to the user experience. I’ve worked with software builders before who were more interested in the nuts and bolts, and not necessarily in how everything fits into the solution and business needs. 

The Smyth Group had a formula that worked for me, and I felt like they were more connected to the business than to the software. It was a very rare experience and I can’t wait to go through it again. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t have anything in that regard.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be open to admitting what you don’t know, but be very specific with what you do know. This will help in terms of development and will help The Smyth Group to understand your business. If you’re stuck, let them know and let them do what they do. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CIO of Cisive, which is a software development business working in HR technology and background investigations. The company has about 900 employees and locations across Asia. Europe, and the US.

What challenge were you trying to address with The Smyth Group?

From a software perspective, we had lots of different challenges. We needed higher-level development resources to help us with building products.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We work with The Smyth Group on a project basis. When we have a project, we engage them and give them access to our Agile development software system. We assign them tasks and then their team performs those tasks. They dedicate higher-level resources such as product architects and UI/UX designers to certain projects. The Smyth Group also provides us with .NET developers, UI/UX designers, and QA services.

What is the team composition?

The Smyth Group assigns individual developers to our projects. My main contact is Robert (General Manager).

How did you come to work with The Smyth Group?

An employee at our company had a relationship with Jamie (CEO) from The Smyth Group.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our relationship goes back about seven years, and we work with them on an ongoing basis. Our business evolves, so there’s always a need for new products and maintenance services for existing products.

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

The Smyth Group's people are far beyond the average team. When we have a difficult problem, we bring them on board because they have high-quality resources. The products we've created with them have increased our top-line revenue or lowered our costs, making us more profitable. It’s a successful relationship.

How did The Smyth Group perform from a project management standpoint?

We use Targetprocess, which is our outdoor project management software.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The Smyth Group has top-notch resources.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I don’t think there’s any areas for improvement. Although they’re expensive, you pay for what you get.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Engage them early in the project to ensure that they’re involved in the requirements gathering sessions. They can add value in terms of being able to understand and help formulate the product. That’s been helpful to us.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the VP of Independent Testing & Balancing Corp. We test commercial ventilation systems in high-rise office buildings, hospitals, laboratories, and institutions.

What challenge were you trying to address with The Smyth Group?

I approached them because we wanted to step away from the server setup and move all of our applications and programs to a cloud-based solution.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We first tasked The Smyth Group to move our office to a new, custom operating system. They moved our programs and set us up on Amazon WorkSpaces. After that project was successful, we decided to work with them to develop a custom app to streamline our processes. They’re currently working on building the mobile app for iOS and Android.

We're in the process of developing a plan and having them understand what we do and the tools we’re currently using, focusing on the changes and expansions we want to make. We want to basically finetune our day-to-day operations with regards to reaching out to contacts, sales, development proposals, tracking our technicians in the field, allowing them to upload reports with the field data they gathered, scheduling, and a host of other functionalities to help our operations.

What is the team composition?

I’ve worked with around five of their teammates, including Jamie (CEO), David (Project Manager), Brandon (Product Engineer), Paul (Product Engineer), and another developer. 

How did you come to work with The Smyth Group?

The Smyth Group was referred to me by a vendor who fixed a specific issue with our server and couldn't take on the additional work we were looking to have done, which was migrating from our office servers to a cloud-based solution. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $10,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The engagement started in August 2020, and it’s ongoing.

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

Overall, it has been a very positive experience. The quality of their work is fantastic, and the migration project has been very successful. As far as the development work, we're just getting started. They haven't really developed anything for us yet. 

How did The Smyth Group perform from a project management standpoint?

The project management has been excellent. I appreciate the online technology that the team uses for billing and payments because it’s very convenient. They're also very honest with their billing, especially regarding how much time they spend. In terms of communication, we use email and Zoom. Our interactions have been on point — they’re responsive to any questions we might have.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’m impressed by how quickly they understand our goals and what we want to develop. I didn’t have to explain much because they picked up on things pretty quickly. They’re very skilled — we're currently working with them on some issues we have with Amazon WorkSpaces, which they've resolved very quickly for us. We appreciate how knowledgeable and responsive they are. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

At this time, I don't think that there’s anything they can improve upon because we haven't gotten into the development phase of it. However, I'm very comfortable with the team that The Smyth Group put together for us, and we're delighted with their work so far. We're looking forward to having a long-term relationship. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Communicate with them well. Be proactive in establishing what it is you're looking for and what you're expecting. They're very knowledgeable and understanding, so my advice is to give the team all the information and feedback they need to succeed.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the founder and CEO of a software-as-a-service company. We provide a check-in management platform to the health & fitness industry.

For what projects/services did your company hire The Smyth Group, and what were your goals?

We have our own in house development team, however, they are stretched thin with all of the projects that we are trying to tackle. We were also looking for additional guidance on the latest software technologies to use.

One of the more pressing needs we had was a Reservations application that several of our customers had been asking for. We hired the Smyth group to build this for us and by releasing this, we were able to retain existing customers and attract new customers.

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We were familiar with the Smyth Group through a Founders networking group called Founders Network. We had heard very positive feedback from other founders regarding their experience with working with the Smyth Group.

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

We started off with a discovery meeting, in which we shared the current platform that we were using and our thoughts on how to improve it. From that, the team presented mockups for us to review and to provide feedback.

The team then built the application and gave us a chance to test and provide additional feedback. We then released a production version for our end customers to test and gain final feedback.

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

We worked with 1 project manager, 1 full stack developer and 1 UI/UX designer.

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

The feedback from both our customers, both staff users and member users has been overwhelmingly positive.

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

We had a weekly call with the team to sync up and share progress from the prior week. We primarily used email for ongoing communication. To manage code, we used the Atlassian suite (Bitbucket, JIRA). To review mockups, we used Adobe XD. To manage testing scripts, we used Notion.

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

We were impressed with their design-led approach and their in-depth knowledge of the best technologies to use. We were also impressed with their speed of delivery and the well organized code development which has set us up for scale and further improvements.

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

Nothing to suggest for improvement on the project, as they did a great job.