One of the most valuable rituals of agile develpment is the retrospective. The retrospective is an event that occurs after the release of completed work or between a set of work sprints where everybody stops, takes measure of what has been completed, celebrates what is working well with the team, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, identifies what … Continued
Perhaps “fire a client” were not the best choice of words for this headline. “How to end a business relationship with grace,” is probably the more tactful and preferred headline. Business relationships are intended to be mutually beneficial. However, this is not always the case. Sometimes, people find themselves in situations where it is not a win-win, … Continued
I wasn’t sure about giving my boys – age 8 and 12 – video game technologies like iPad, iPhone, iMac, Xbox, Wii, etc. Their personalities seem to change when they are in game mode. They can’t hear when you speak to them, they get irritable when you interrupt them for things like dinner and bedtime, … Continued
Ten years ago, I was living in Santa Monica, California and working 2 blocks from the beach. Every other person who came into my office seeking a website was either associated with Hollywood or was an aspiring entrepreneur wanting to start up a new tech company. But, they only had a budget of $2,500. Talk … Continued
In November 2007, I was seeking a tech co-founder who was well-connected with web designers and developers, who could work as a project manager, and help me launch inQbation, which ultimately spawned Agileana – also a web design and development company in the DC metro area. I could not have picked a better co-founder. Particularly … Continued
And what does plumbing have to do with agile development? In my spare time, I started this bathroom renovation project. Long story short, we are at the stage of life where we are taking care of children and grandparents. The sandwich generation, I think is what it’s called. Anyway, we are converting an office, powder … Continued
Spam phishing attempt of the day. I get these at least once a week. Always the same message … can you handle website design and do you take credit cards. They claim to be hearing impaired so you only communicate by text. Obviously, they don’t want to get on the phone with you and reveal … Continued
At Agileana, we believe that work anniversaries are significant events – more so, in some cases, than birthdays. This week, we are celebrating the first work anniversary of Deborah Holmstrom, our CFO. The CFO position is probably one of the most important positions in a company. If a company cannot meet its expenses, make it’s … Continued
Identity theft, hacking, phishing, and malware are huge problems and they are only going to get worse. Once of the biggest issues we have nowadays is that we have hundreds of accounts on hundreds of platforms and many platforms have unique password security requirements. Some organizations require 8 digit passwords while others require 10, 12, … Continued
How I got businesses to refund thousands of dollars and take responsibility We learned a long time ago that one unhappy client, regardless of whether or not they are in the right or wrong, can make life miserable for you if they decide to go social. “Going social” is like going ballistic but on social … Continued
There are a ton of communications tools out there. The problem is that there is a ton of communications tools out there. It’s a problem because people may monitor some communication channels while ignoring others. Consequently, important messages could get missed or delayed. For us, it is important to use the right tool at the … Continued
There are different ways of getting new business. One is through traditional advertising. Another is through word of mouth. A third way is word of mouse marketing. Word-of-mouse marketing relies more on clicks, searches, and hash tags. When it comes to growth hacking, developers apply science to marketing. Science is the study of behavior through … Continued
We are pleased to introduce Jennifer Long to our staff at Agileana. Jenny is a graduate of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology and a Computer Science student at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. We originally met Jenny at our 2016 Summer Internship Hackathon, which was a 6-week tech venture designed to … Continued
Congratulations to Virginia Alvarez on her two-year work anniversary with inQbation, the company that spawned Agileana, Balystic, and a host of other dot com startups. We originally met Virginia years earlier while she was attending college pursuing a Bachelor of Applied Science degree in Interactive Media Design. At the time, she was seeking an internship … Continued
Drupal 8 is an entirely new content management system (CMS) re-built from the ground up using a more modern, modular, object oriented framework. Migrating from earlier versions of Drupal to Drupal 8 is almost like migrating from an entirely different CMS, but it is well worth the effort due to its advantages, benefits, and features, … Continued
Insights
