Code District

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the IT director at Barrett Values Centre. We offer a suite of tools that help leaders gain deep insight into the cultural dynamics of their organization at every single level. This insight provides a map for leaders to build and sustain a high performing, values-driven culture

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Code District, and what were your goals?

We had a need to quickly onboard a highly skiled team to help modernize our IT solution. As a small to midsize company, it made clear sense to outsource to a company that already had a fully vetted team of professionals. We were fulfilling multiple roles and functions and we needed more expertise in dedicated positions.

SOLUTION

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

We originally found them through a referral. After researching them online via their website and professional reviews I decided to reach out to them. We set up a meeting to talk about our needs and the services they offer. I was blown away by their systematic approach to helping clients like myself to meet their goals. This included the assembly of a complete project team that consisted of a PM, Analyst/Strategist, Designers, Front End Developers, Back End Developers, DBA, and other supporting roles as needed.

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

They are helping us streamline and modernize our IT solution. We started with a detailed discovery phase that covered over a decade of product development of our current solution and business processes. Their Analyst/Strategist and UX designer have played a critical role in reviewing our current Architecture and Business Processes and have been a great sounding board for shaping the solution going forward.

We have divided this project into 3 phases and phase 1 has now officially moved into QA and UAT. As we work to find any issues, I've had the opportunity to take phase1 for a test drive and I'm really pleased and excited about the new version. Some of the technologies used are:

• React
• NodeJS
• Hussura
• GraphQL
• Postgres
• Salesforce
• Message Broker
• Authentication Provider
• AWS

Steps included a high-level discovery, project team assembly, detailed discovery with wireframes and documentation, a comprehensive roadmap with transparency around every step, development, and finally a staging release of the solution.

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

There were about 10+ people on the vendor's team.

• Project Manager
• Business Analyst
• Strategist
• Designers
• React Front End Developers
• Back End Developers
• DBA
• other supporting roles as needed, like UI/UX expert, Quality Assurance, and HTML/CSS designer

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The deliverables are professional and modern looking which is what we wanted. They also include much-needed improvements to the UX and UI which will hopefully translate into a more scalable system as more of our users take advantage of self-serve.

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

The project managers were very professional friendly and organized. They set up and organized meetings and were very accessible via slack, Jira, confluence, and email.

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

We had access to the team and they were incredibly efficient. We actually needed to go at a slower pace because we were torn between keeping our day-to-day operations working and getting our own internal documentation prepared. They seem to have a great connection internally which reflects in the experience they are able to share.

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

There are a couple of things that could have been improved about the project. The thing is internal to our company, we had quite a few knowledge gaps, fuzzy business processes, missing product owner, and overstretched stakeholders. This made our initial phase1 discovery less than ideal. Because it wasn't always clear what decision was made, who truly held the product vision, and who was the final decision-maker.

Fortunately, we were able to course-correct. We took a pause on phase1 development while we got our own internal ducks in a row. Code District was very gracious in delaying some of our original agreed-upon project dates while we sorted ourselves internally and were able to resume discovery and design with a clear structure and vision. It's hard to say what Code District could have done differently in this situation other than recognizing it for what it was.

While we have a software solution, we aren't a software company and many of the people coming to the discovery meeting had never taken part in product development and don't know anything about software development lifecycle, design thinking, and the different methodologies like agile. The great thing about Code District is that they do embrace industry standards in terms of methodology which includes retrospectives, so they are very good at making adjustments to what is working well and what can be improved with each client.