Tandem

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the digital project manager in the marketing department of an urgent care company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Tandem?

We needed help redesigning our website to make it more user-friendly. The website should serve the purpose of helping customers save their spot or learn about our center.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They provided design, content, and coding for the website. They brought in project management and content subject matter experts to help as well.

We used PowerPoint to share what we were looking for, and they used Envision to bring the wireframes to life. They also came to the table with ideas.

Our new designs are card-based, and they added paragraphs of content in Drupal. They put the pieces together so we could work with the SEO and metadata. Also, they made sure we were ADA compliant. 

They still serve as our extra developer, slowly working on things based on our budget. We haven’t completely redesigned our site because we run out of money every once in a while.

What is the team composition?

They had a project manager, a designer, and a developer. The project manager helped coordinate questions and worked internally with Tandem to make sure the developer and designer were aligned with our feedback.

How did you come to work with Tandem?

My boss chose them, and I don’t know what made her choose them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested about $200,000 to $999,999.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in June 2018, and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I’ve always had a good experience with them. They were great to work with, and they come with ideas. 

Also, they made us more responsive. Before, we couldn’t do content editing easily without a developer. Now, somebody like me can go in and change the content and imagery. That was huge.

Our developer is a little biased. Sometimes, he thinks our code isn’t always the most efficient, but that’s more his bias than the truth.

How did Tandem perform from a project management standpoint?

They deal well with the interesting personalities of our group and our dynamics. They dive right in, and they’re always super helpful and nice. They’re always available to help.

However, in the beginning, it was pretty rough. The deadlines weren’t completely met. This may have been due to issues with nailing down the requirements, scope, and requirements changing. 

We worked with them to bring on a project manager, and that helped a lot. She definitely helped us meet the deadlines faster. We use GitHub with a Zendesk layover, and it works great. We have Slack as well.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I can’t express how great of people they are to work with.  They came in at a good rate. From a personality perspective, working with them feels like they’re a part of our team.

We hired them for their expertise, and they provided that, but it wasn’t overbearing.

Also, they’re flexible with us. If they didn’t fully believe in something, they’d tell us they don’t recommend it, but they’d still do it for us.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We fixed a lot of issues with them in the beginning. We were having trouble making sure timelines were met, understanding the scope and timeline of each release. The scope creep didn’t help, but that was more on our side. Once we got the project manager, she was pretty dedicated and it turned out to be a lot better.

Another thing was, we’d ask for a feature, and they’d develop it. However, it wouldn’t be what we had in mind. We kept trying to figure out why we weren’t on the same page. 

We started asking the project manager to document what we said in drawings and pictures. That way, she could really show her development team what we were looking for. We didn’t want the re-work to be charged back to us when it wasn’t really what we asked for. Trying to bridge that communication took a little bit of time. 

However, in regard to working together, they are open to figuring out what the problem is, and they resolve it.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the web services director of a university’s web and digital communications division.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Tandem?

Our website was experiencing performance issues, such as lag time. My division wanted to upgrade the site to a new version of Drupal.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Tandem made existing site functionalities and content compatible with the new version of Drupal.

What is the team composition?

Our team worked with a project manager and two developers.

How did you come to work with Tandem?

We had a relationship with one of Tandem’s founders. He had helped us adopt Drupal a few years prior. Upgrading to the new version of Drupal was essentially a site rebuild, so we needed a partner that was well-versed in the Drupal framework. Tandem's capabilities matched this need. 

How much have you invested with them?

We spent between $15,000–$20,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The Drupal site upgrade lasted from September 2017–August 2018. We then engaged Tandem for other projects through February 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our most significant metric of success for this project was performance. Although we don’t have any specific measurements, the updated Drupal site is functioning better.

How did Tandem perform from a project management standpoint?

My team needed to relaunch the website before students returned to campus. Tandem was committed to meeting this strict deadline. When unforeseen issues arose in the code, they acted swiftly to resolve them.

We used tools in GitHub, such as the compound functionality. Slack was our primary mode of communication.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They executed a smooth and timely project. The dedicated team was extremely responsive and open to feedback.

Are there any areas they could improve?

During the development phase, there was some miscommunication. However, we worked with Tandem’s leadership and were able to rectify the issue.

Any advice for potential customers?

Make sure project needs are understood internally and have requirements clearly defined. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of products for a market research and consulting firm. We help executives improve themselves, and I manage all the technology, products, and services we offer them.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Tandem?

We needed to build some platform and technology solutions to support our internal team so that, in turn, we could better support our client-facing products and platforms.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We hired Tandem to build a database architecture that enables our employees to enter company data with ease and tie that data to any related research. Tandem used Laravel, Drupal CMS, and Ruby on Rails to build the platform, which allows numerous users to access it and add data in bulk or by individual company records. Now, our internal team and external data sources can use the platform to update our companies and markets database.

What is the team dynamic?

We had between 2­–4 people, depending on the tasks at hand. Alec [CEO, Tandem] was our project manager and main point of contact.

How did you come to work with Tandem?

One of our employees worked with the individuals who started Tandem, so we already knew they’d do a great job. They knew the platform well that we wanted to deploy, so we chose them from among a number of different firms.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent just over $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project lasted from December 2016 to this August.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Right now, we don’t have any metrics to attribute to them, but the UI they helped build is much easier to use compared to the past system. For the most part, the product has operated fluidly and successfully.

How did Tandem perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re fantastic. Alec and I ran the project together, and he coordinated everything in a manner that made it visible and easy to use. We used GitHub to manage the entire project, and we communicated daily on Slack. Twice a week, we talked on the phone to discuss updates, progress, and any needs they had.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I've worked with a lot of developers over the years, and Tandem is incredibly easy to communicate with. Alec made the process very pleasant, and the whole team was an absolute pleasure to work with. They understood our business goals and provided quality dev.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Not that I can think of.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They’re well-versed in deploying any technology, but I would definitely say their specialty is database architecture, so if that’s what you need, then use them.