Posts By Ann Aly

Do You Know What Makes a Good Question?

Questions are not inherently neutral. They carry context, tone (if spoken), assumptions, and bias. If you’re working with customer (CX) or employee (EX) experience, asking questions is a necessary part of gathering feedback. Without considering the assumptions encoded in your questions, you could be inadvertently contaminating the feedback you’re collecting. Let’s discuss a couple of… Read more »

Are We Failing our Player-Coach Managers?

Management styles have diversified over the past decade, with more “traditional” command-and-control management approaches falling out of fashion. Individual Contributor (IC) and management paths are no longer binary and self-management models (such as this description from scrum.org) are increasing in popularity. But are we failing our player-coaches by not coaching them too?

Are You Committing Any of These Data Viz Sins?

Data visualizations are crucial to sharing the results of quantitative work. Ideally, they should help your audience understand your findings quicker, like a power-assisted bicycle. However, most of us are not trained in data visualization best practices and it can be difficult to know what type of chart to choose.

Low-Tech Security: Building Trust Through Nuanced Consent

This will be the first in a short series on ways to protect end-user identities when collecting feedback or testing products. As many of us become more proficient in cybersecurity best practices, it’s crucial that we don’t forget some of the low-tech ways that we can keep identities secure and maintain trust.