Posts By Ann Aly

Citizen Engagement, Communications, Digital Government, Employee Experience, Learning, Policy

What Will Happen to the CX Executive Order in the New Administration?

Many customer experience (CX) nerds in the public sector are wondering “What will happen to Biden’s CX Executive Order?” Here’s some context on how CX-related executive orders have played out in the past, and some hypotheses about what lies ahead.

Analytics, Communications, Digital Government, Employee Experience, Project Management

OMB Just Released Guidance on Usability Testing. Let’s Talk About It.

In November 2024, OMB released a memo clarifying that the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) does allow usability testing and offering guidance on complying. The criteria can be confusing, though, so let’s talk about what’s required.

Citizen Engagement, Employee Experience

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. Let’s discuss a couple of the ways that questions make assumptions and how to avoid them when collecting feedback.

Leadership

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?

Analytics, Communications

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.