Solveda

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

A typical engagement is between 2 and 6 months. They generally have firm commitments on cost and delivery time, and so far, they’ve been able to meet those commitments. They will typically have between 2 and 6 engineers on a project. That includes QA [quality assurance]. Generally, they’re putting about one project manager, two QA people, and three engineers. Sometimes they’ll bring a graphics person into the project, but we usually provide the graphics ourselves. The most common technology that we’re using with them is .net, although Java comes in too sometimes.

How did Soveda perform from a project management standpoint?

They use an Agile project management methodology. We generally have a weekly project update. They do scrums on a daily basis. At the end of all our meetings we get a written email report with the status. They’ve got the infrastructure for tracking projects, reporting issues, managing source code and so forth, so we’re able to do everything through their intranet.

What did you find most impressive about Soveda?

One of the biggest things is they’re [Solveda] able to bid large projects correctly. So if we’ve got a half a million-dollar project that’s going to have ten resources on it with a six-month delivery timeline, they get the bid right. That’s huge for us. There is no underbidding or overbidding. So we know the status of the project. If there’s an issue, we know it right away, and they find creative ways to get around the inevitable problems that always show up in a complicated project.

Are there any areas Soveda could improve?

The main thing we need from them is we need them to grow. We’re investing along with them and bringing other projects. We’re probably consuming a large percentage of their resources, and they’re going to need to add more people to keep up with the amount of work that we’re going to be giving them.