One day, I was frustrated by the lack of open solutions to a common problem. And now, I’m excited to announce Excella’s latest foray into the open-source world – our new URL shortener, which we’ve made available for you as well! What is a URL Shortener or Link Shortener? Sometimes, web addresses can be long and hard to remember, and you’d…
Insights
Let’s Talk Tech (and more!)
Our people are passionate about their work, and they have a lot to say about it! Check out our weekly insights for our thoughts on technology, data, Agile, and program management.
UX Tools for the Business Analyst: Part 3
In our last installment, we discussed the value that empathy maps and personas can bring to your project. Your users are now at the forefront of everyone’s minds, and the team is ready to learn about the problems that need solving. But what next? How do you begin to determine what changes need to be…
Continuous CX Improvement: Between Margins and Moonshots
Something has gone wrong in customer experience (CX). Advanced analytics was supposed to tell us how to delight customers with seamless, integrated experiences. But despite tripling down on analytics spending, companies are seeing only a modest impact. In fact, CX quality actually decreased last year. Margins and Moonshots The hallmark of CX leaders is their…
5 Myths About the Analyst-Designer Relationship
This post was coauthored by Excella Agile Business Analyst Noura Saad, and UX designer and Excella Alumna Hareem Mannan. Myth # 1. Myth: Analysts are the sole subject matter experts when it comes to understanding the business needs and leading process engineering. Designers are responsible for the design and user experience, irrespective of the business functionality….
What are the Differences Between Scrum, Kanban and Scrumban?
In this blog, I provide a short summary comparing three Agile approaches I often hear about: Scrum, Kanban and Scrumban. I also give some succinct recommendations about when to use one over the others. Scrum At its core Scrum is an iterative and incremental Agile software development framework for managing product development. The framework defines…
Best Tech Events for June 2018
Beat the heat and head to one of our favorite meetups or conferences! Check out what our technologists are doing in the community and join us for an event. Here is this month’s list of upcoming events: An Overview of Container Orchestration Organized by: CMAP .NET User Group Tuesday, June 5th 7 PM – 9 PM…
Tableau Prep: Tableau is Simplifying Data Cleanup
Example of a Data Flow in Tableau Prep But Don’t Throw Away Your Current ETL Tool Just Yet Tableau recently promoted its Maestro beta program to a licensed data cleansing and modification tool called Prep. Tableau Prep comes bundled with Tableau Desktop in their new Creator license. The purpose of bundling the two products together…
Inspecting and Adapting for Continuous Improvement
In my last post, I described how we started with Kanban at Silverline to help them become a more agile marketing firm. Early on, we kept the focus on mapping their system, visualizing the work, and agreeing on explicit policies (think: rules of the road) that would drive them towards achieving results. After giving the…
How to Develop an Agile Testing Mindset and Automate Everything
Would you like to build a product with very few defects? Would you like to be able to ship a new version of your product every two weeks or even faster? Would you like to meet your customers’ needs more quickly? If you answered yes to any of these, then I would recommend taking Excella’s Certified Agile Testing and Automation…
How One Team Learned to Embrace Challenge and Succeed with Agile Marketing
The latest post in Excella and Silverline Communications’ Business Agility: A Marketing Agency’s Transformation blog series is here! In their third post, Silverline reflects on the surprising challenges and unexpected successes of their Agile Marketing journey. Like many teams, the small marketing and communications agency struggled with initial change. But once the team began “to…
