Case Study: The Groop

Searching for a way to handle explosive growth

Creativity and diversity are core values for The Groop, one of the hottest design firms in Los Angeles. Clients as diverse as Nike, the Los Angeles Times, and the French Laundry, turn to The Groop to create dynamic user experiences that help them better communicate, engage and transact with their customers. "Our model is to take an idea and bring it to life in three to six months," said Summer Swigart, Lead Software Engineer for The Groop.

All this success has resulted in explosive growth. "A couple of years ago, we had only five people," said Swigart. "Now we have 30 employees and 50 contractors, and we're doubling every six months."

And because The Groop relies on the Scrum methodology for project management (derived from the agile software development movement), group communication and collaboration is mission critical. The email-based approach which worked for a five-person boutique was becoming unmanageble for an 80-person firm.

"The email trails were getting over the top," said Swigart. "To get an RFP out, three departments have to collaborate: technology, design, and strategy. We were uploading files to the extranet and emailing, 'Hey, can you review this?' People were starting to ignore and lose important emails."

Selecting a collaboration solution

Swigart realized that wiki collanboration would be a great way to centralize information and streamline collaboration, and began looking for a solution.

"I did a lot of research on collaboration tools," Swigart noted, "We looked at PBworks, Central Desktop, and Confluence. Confluence has a lot of functionality, but it's not easy to use. PBworks is really easy to use, and it allows us to keep the creative flow going."

To make a final decision, Swigart set up three different test sites and invited everyone in the firm to participate in the bake-off. "Everyone thought PBworks was the easiest to use, and everybody loved it. The clincher was when our president, Jose said, 'Our solution needs to be sexy. PBworks is much sexier than the other tools.'"

PBworks: An integral part of daily operations

"PBworks lets us centralize our information," Swigart said, "This enables agile development in a really great way, and provides transparency so that management can see that everybody is doing work. And because a lot of people have their notifications enabled, we can all see what everyone else is working on."

The Groop uses PBworks for project management, corporate training, and to document best practices.

For example, The Groop created a "LA Phil" folder to manage a building project, a tribute to outgoing Los Angeles Philharmonic conductor Esa Pekka Salonen. The Groop's project folder includes a custom project board, complete with virtual tacks and index cards (implemented via a PBworks custom template), and offers read-only access to vendors and contractors so that they can participate in the daily scrum without compromising any of the other information on the wiki.

Another key usage is determining and publishing development standards. "We have a lot of developers who are contractors," said Swigart. "We publish all of our coding standards on the wiki. That way, when something goes wrong, we can just point to our standards rather than saying, 'Why did you do it that way? It's broken!'"

And given The Groop's rapid growth, PBworks has become a key educational tool for onboarding new employees. "We use PBworks whenever we get a new hire," Swigart said. "Even something as simple as explaining why you say when people ask, 'What does The Groop do?' is spelled out on the wiki."

A dramatic $1 million boost in productivity

The cumulative benefit from using PBworks grew far beyond what The Groop ever hoped for. "PBworks brings up the quality of information our people can absorb," said Swigart. "It's increased information flow and brought down overhead, giving us more time for billable work. Our 50 users spend more time on billable projects as opposed to asking, 'Where's the project?' or 'How do I connect to the Internet?'"

"We're getting $1 million per year in additional productivity."