Corporate - Oktana

Innovation, an important tool for boosting business

The concept of innovation gained popularity in the business world in recent years. If you’re a business person or an entrepreneur who regularly follows talks, events, workshops, or internet content for getting some inspiration; you may be inspired by this idea. But what does innovation mean? Well, Michelle Greenwald, a Forbes contributor, mentioned that “Innovation is one of the most bandied about terms in global business today, but exactly what it means can be nebulous.”

We agree. Innovation is about approaching things in a different way. However, since disruption is part of this concept, every company or human can incorporate innovation into their real environment. Does it make things more difficult? Taking an innovative approach may be challenging initially, but it can be an advantage for growing your business.

We also innovate the Oktana way. We like doing things differently. We apply innovation for our customers (such as the offline app we built for an energy company) Here are some strategies to boost your innovation.

1. It’s not about perfection

If you are looking for perfection, we’re sorry to say this approach may not be right for you. At Oktana, we prefer taking the path less traveled so we can get different results and solutions. We understand that sometimes it’s about the minimum viable product, or as some call it, the “minimum lovable product”. In these situations, we know it’s about delivering the best product possible within the project’s constraints, not delivering perfection. Even when we deliver an amazing product and our customers are satisfied, we know there is always a different way it could have been approached. The next step is about exploring those possibilities. That’s why we are constantly working on new lightning web components, new versions of our digital products, and hunting for new and challenging projects. If you want to innovate, don’t aim for perfection. Aim for disruption.

2. Face your assumptions

Do you remember René Descartes? Yes, that French philosopher who has influenced the world since the sixteenth century and who has placed doubts in the middle of his thinking. We are not asking you to doubt everything, but we do recommend you determine if all of your assumptions are still useful. Why? We all have ideas that we take for granted. Ideas are so entrenched in our minds that they tend to shape the way we approach things, and that’s not always a good practice. (Remember when remote work was not a “good idea” for many companies, then a pandemic showed us what was possible?). Take the time to question your assumptions. Compare them to the current situation. If you feel they really don’t make sense then it’s time to innovate!

3. Innovation is for doers.

Creativity is an important stage of innovation, but what happens if we don’t stop thinking? All of our great ideas stay in our minds and never come to life. That’s why innovation is for doers, for people who dare to take action after a planning process. If you are having trouble bringing your ideas to life, don’t worry. It happens to everyone and we believe it’s part of the innovation process. What do we recommend? Write your ideas on paper, share them with your teammates, and ask for feedback. All of these actions are small steps but your ideas are now living outside of your mind. After this first step, congratulate yourself and start planning. Your idea will grow until you have a great product in your hands.

4. Mistakes are part of innovation

What would the world be like without mistakes? Failures are probably one of the best teachers humans may have. If you fail in your attempt at creating a new product, then you have another opportunity to do it. More importantly, you now have a better understanding of what you are doing. Don’t get us wrong. Mistakes on their own don’t deliver value, it’s your attitude that really matters and how you use your personal experience to enhance your solutions. Noah, one of our engineers in the US, shares a very interesting perspective:

“For me, innovation means changing the norm for the better. A change is not automatically positive or negative. If a change is made but the overall outcome is negative, that’s fine because the change does not have to be permanent. You can roll-back the changes until you find something that works well. Innovation is trial and error a lot of the time. Because of that, innovation does not always mean improvement. But innovation paves the path for improvement.”
Noah B. Engineer at Oktana US

As Salesforce partners, we learn a lot from our customers and the projects we deliver. These recommendations are just a part of it. We encourage you to share them with your team so you can all have the same mindset. Also, if you want to innovate the Salesforce way, here are a couple of trails that might be worth reading: Innovate the Salesforce way and Innovation Customer Discovery. Now, sharpen your mind and use innovation in every level of your projects.

Multitasking: the key to fast-paced businesses success

In a world where changes take place at record speed, multitasking is a skill everyone should nurture. Imagine the world during the second half of the previous century. How did we communicate or work? Do you remember pen-pals, faxes, pagers? (I know you do). And the most important fact: How quickly were we able to connect with others in our jobs? It seems we used to take our time to get projects done, but let’s be honest, that is no longer a possibility.

We, as a tech company, understand this phenomenon from experience. As the world moves on, we feel a lack of time to get our projects done. The more connected we are, the bigger our workload gets. But don’t stress out. We want to share with you some strategies our team always takes into account to deal with simultaneous tasks and still deliver excellent results. So, if you need an extra perspective to manage your assignments, have a seat, and enjoy these tips:

1. Multitasking is about getting to know yourself

This is an inner journey and also the very first step. If you are not aware of your capabilities, limits, and expectations; your experience at work may become frustrating. It doesn’t matter at what point in your career you are, always take some time to identify your strengths and weaknesses. This knowledge will help you manage your goals, save you a lot of time, and avoid unreal expectations. Experiences and capabilities also give you the opportunity to leverage other kinds of resources like money, time, people, social networks, laws, and even technology. We know you can’t fully control them, but by using your skills wisely, you can maximize the benefits from them.

2. Identify your partners

As we mentioned before, people are a great source of value. Sometimes, the answer you need is in your co-workers’ mind and you haven’t even noticed. Do you work in teams? We bet you do. You and your colleagues have different professional backgrounds that may be of great help to each other to achieve complex assignments. Identify who may be your key partners and work together. We encourage our team to exchange knowledge and collaborate across the company through our channels. Even now that we are working remotely we always use Slack to quickly connect:

“[Slack] makes things easier when it comes to looking for the right teammate in the company as we all are on the same platform. Besides, I can quickly create Groups with the members of a team”
Joaquin G. – Dev team at Oktana Uruguay

3. Start small to build a productive routine

Okay. You know yourself and you know your teammates. Now, you notice your workload is getting larger and larger, and you don’t know what to do. Here you need to stay relaxed. It’s time to train your mind and body for multitasking and an efficient work shift. There is a simple way to get used to it: start small. Group tasks that are easy to handle for you and try to accomplish them simultaneously. Track your time and strive to get them done faster. This will help increase your productivity progressively. When you feel that everything starts getting more lean and seamless, congratulations: you have a smart routine sized for your needs!

4. Multitasking and collaboration are linked

Now that you have a routine and you are aware of your resources, you are ready to collaborate efficiently. And by “collaborate” we mean getting and giving the best from you and anyone on the team. If you strive for the same goal with your department and your company, your workload will decrease and you will see your projects getting done faster. If you are leading a team, teach your members that collaboration is key and provide them channels for real-time collaboration. (And you may also be interested in Leadership: How to manage your team the best way.) Dana, from Peru, tells us how it’s done at Oktana:

My work demands I talk with many co-workers on a daily basis and Slack provides me a unique chat platform where I can find them even if they are working abroad. Channels are great when I am involved in many projects and have to collaborate with many people at the same time.
Dana S. – Human Resources at Oktana Peru

These are just some strategies we use. Spread that mindset to your co-workers and it will impact your work. For more reading material you can also take a look at this Salesforce Trailhead module about Personal Productivity. As you apply everything you have learned today in your work, you will figure out new ways to multitask efficiently. When that happens, come back and share your ideas with us. Have a good one!

Five tips to make feedback your ally at work

Feedback is something people are often afraid of because it tends to only expose weak points that may make you feel intimidated and vulnerable. However, that’s a very old-fashioned point of view. Effective feedback is not only about providing a list of things that are wrong. Constructive and empathetic feedback brings new perspectives and a positive intent to highlight proven skills. “What Good Feedback Really Looks Like” on the Harvard Business Review says:

“Feedback — both positive and negative — is essential to helping managers enhance their best qualities and address their worst so they can excel at leading.”

Craig Chappelow and Cindy McCauley

We consider feedback to be a huge source of knowledge and an opportunity to improve. If you are having trouble giving or receiving feedback, here are 5 valuable recommendations we apply at Oktana:

1. Consider feedback at every stage.

Whether you are a senior manager or just beginning your career, requesting feedback should be always part of your planning. Why? Sometimes you are so in love with your projects that you tend to believe everything is going well. So you keep working with that perspective and when you finally realize something is wrong it’s usually too late or too expensive to fix it. You can be sure you are moving in the right direction by asking your teammates, boss, or partner for their perspectives on your progress. We do it all the time and trust us, the results are great. Plus, it creates a sense of ownership for the whole team.

“Feedback is so important when we execute every single task. It measures the quality of your work. Besides, it helps me identify possible mistakes and improvements that will enhance our project.”

Zayli RodrÍguez, QA Analyst at Oktana Uruguay

2. Distinguish what is worth your attention

Ok, let’s say you are following our previous recommendation and you are considering feedback as your projects progress. You are excited because your co-workers are giving you cool new inputs. Congratulations. That’s awesome! But what happens when you start noticing that some of the feedback you’re getting contradicts other feedback you’ve received? We know, it’s challenging. Everyone is bringing their own perspective to it and they aren’t always going to agree. You know yourself and your projects. That means you have the job of figuring out which feedback is the most relevant. Just make sure you’re not letting your bias guide which feedback you’re listening to.

3. Be truly positive

We love it when people are positive and enthusiastic, but if you lose your sense of reality it may not be easy to deliver value. When you are required to provide feedback for a project or a teammate, you have a huge chance in your hands to help them perform better. Don’t miss that opportunity by hiding your real thoughts because you’re afraid of a misunderstanding or you’re just trying to be polite. This is what constructive feedback is all about. Find the best way to convey your ideas in a way your partner truly feels that you actually want to improve things. Use your voice, regulate your tone, and use any resource you have so you help others focus on the solution, not the weakness.

4. Actively listen to every client.

And by the client, we are not exclusively talking about your customers. We are also talking about internal co-workers. When you create a solution, you think about your final users, don’t you? So whatever you are doing, you make sure it makes sense for them. But you also collaborate with other teams within the company. Wouldn’t it be efficient to have a good idea of what they think of your project and your performance? Indeed, it is! At Oktana, we use Slack, for staying always connected. We use channels to collaborate but when we need to get feedback, we know private conversations are the best place to do it. Activate every approach you have to get the feedback you need. Bruno Venturini, tells us how Slack helps him collaborate:

“Slack allows us to communicate in an intuitive way with your team or co-workers. Besides, it’s also relevant for sharing ideas between developers and QAs to make our projects improve”

Bruno Venturini, Developer at Oktana Uruguay

5. Encourage others to give feedback

Create the conditions for an environment where feedback becomes one of the engines that drives excellence. Most visionary companies, either multinationals or startups, track feedback consistently. If you are part of one, get onboard and treasure that asset. If you feel your company doesn’t understand the value of constructive feedback, teach by example. Create simple spaces where people feel their opinion is taken into account. It doesn’t have to be sophisticated. Chats or phone calls also work. As soon as your co-workers notice you are performing better, they will want to copy your strategy and it will be easier for you to give/request feedback.

So, these are our recommendations for any employee to make feedback their ally. We live it every day at Oktana, even more during the new environment this pandemic has brought (we have previously written an article about Communication and Remote Work that you may also want to read). Apply them in your daily routine and you will notice the difference in your performance. Also, If you want to see Salesforce’s approach, we encourage you to read the modules about the Culture of feedback and the importance of One-on-one Meetings. Have a good one!

Leadership: The best way to manage your team

Team leadership may be a long and challenging path. The good thing is that leaders are made, not born. Every successful leader you see on TV, in your company, at your university, or even in your neighborhood developed their skills over time. If they were able to become strong leaders, so can you. Kevin Kruse, a Forbes contributor, and CEO of LEADx, define leadership as:

“Leadership is a process of social influence, which maximizes the efforts of others, towards the achievement of a goal.”

We like his approach because it emphasizes the importance of the “others” – our team! Leadership is not about you as the leader, it’s about the people you’re leading and what they will be able to achieve. If this seems overwhelming, relax, it just means you’re facing a new challenge. It may take a little extra effort, but in the end, you’ll gain new skills to help your team (and you) succeed. Here are five recommendations that help us lead our teams here at Oktana and turn our people into high-performers.

1. Leadership is not about you.

We’ve already said it, but it’s important enough to repeat. If you expect to get all the credit as the leader, you’re probably not in the right job. Assuming a leadership role requires a certain amount of expertise in specific areas. You weren’t promoted to leadership with the expectation that you’ll be doing the exact same work you’ve always done. There wouldn’t be any challenge in that. Your role is now to inspire your team and develop their capabilities so they can accomplish more. They might even be working on the same types of achievements you did before you moved into leadership. It’s their time to shine now. Your excellent leadership will shine through their accomplishments.

2. Great leaders connect.

Great leaders connect their teams. And it’s not just about having regular conversations. When we say “connect your team”, we mean “become a real support for them.” They’re challenged by you to become better professionals, but they’re also looking to you for help or instruction. If they don’t have your support, it may become an awful experience for everyone. It’s important to let them be independent in their work, just be sure your other responsibilities don’t take your attention away from their progress and needs.

Mauricio Villamayor, product designer at Oktana Paraguay shares his perspective:

“I always think of giving more independence to team members, but this pandemic makes me more aware of the need to be supportive and stay connected in a deeper way.”
Mauricio Villamayor – Product designer at Oktana Paraguay

3. The challenges are real.

Are you the kind of person who is always looking for a bigger challenge as soon as you finished the last one? That’s the sign of a great professional. If you see this pattern in your team, congratulations, you’re leading a high-performing team. The challenge for leaders is creating work experiences that take your teams to the next level. Map your expectations for the team and think of innovative and interesting projects to help them experience the professional growth they need. Challenges nourish your team. Feed them.

4. Learning goes both ways in team leadership.

Some people think employees learn from their leaders, but that leaders don’t learn from employees. Leaders provide knowledge and team members execute the tasks. We feel that’s not taking advantage of the full potential of the team. Our team brings expertise from design, development, marketing, administration, sales, and operations, from many countries. It’s taught us that leaders who don’t see their team members as potential sources of knowledge are missing an opportunity to see their business and markets from another perspective. That knowledge is pure gold in a world where everything is constantly changing.

5. Communicate efficiently.

Time is money, whether we’re talking about business or our daily lives. As you decide how to manage your team conversations, make sure those moments are as efficient as possible. Every team meeting needs an agenda so team members can easily understand the focus of the meeting and what they need to bring to the table. Use your channels well and try not to overwhelm your team. Stay strategic. Deliver the right message, through the right channel, at the right time.

“I believe Slack helps me a lot because it gets fast communication with my team members in real-time. Either I need to have 1:1 conversations or group arrangements, Slack is the platform where I can trust.”
Mauricio Villamayor – Product designer at Oktana Paraguay

Remember, becoming a great leader is a learning process that never ends. So whether you’re leading your first team or you’re an experienced leader, keep this advice in mind. Also, if you want to go deeper into leadership and team management, take a look at this trail about Empathetic Leadership and Managing the Salesforce Way.

Hope you have enjoyed it so far. We’re constantly striving to improve our leadership, join us. Our team knows what good leadership entails and we do our best to keep growing. We are a great place to work so if you’re interested in joining our team, go over to our available positions. Also, if you want to know more about our work, go check out our latest success stories.

5 ways to master remote work and improve communication

Remote work is here to stay. Period. The new normal is here and it demands a brand new perspective on communication. In this pandemic, one of the cornerstones that we must consider is social distance. That’s the reason why well working remotely is a skill we currently need to stay profitable and grow our businesses. This might be confusing for many, but it’s actually quite simple (and fun). There are companies that have been working with teams abroad and are working remotely with ease.

In other words, take some time to learn from the experts. Integrating teams in different countries to create IT solutions for our customers is something we at Oktana are very used to. Nara, from our Human Resources department in Paraguay, tells us more about her experience:

“[I believe] things haven’t changed a lot since I have always reported and worked remotely with co-workers from other countries even before the pandemic showed up. [Morover,] I think remote work has improved my performance because I save time in the traffic and even money that I used for transportation and food. Now I feel I have more energy and resources.”

Nara G. – Human Resources at Oktana Paraguay

Let us help you work remotely more wisely to increase your efficiency, improve work culture, and grow revenues.

Distance has nothing to do with meters or feet

This is our first and most important recommendation. Why? Because it’s not about distance. It’s about having the right state of mind. If you want to master remote work and enhance your communication skills, you have to let go of that idea of physical distance. Talented remote workers know their partners are always just a click away:

“[The new normal] impacted the way we communicate with our teammates. Now we need to find new ways to facilitate communication. However, Slack is that space where we can stay always connected and work more fluently”.

Nery – Web developer at Oktana Paraguay

That’s the key. We know where to find our teammates, and especially, how to reach out to them in the most effective way. Here is a tip that you may want to consider in your routine: identify your partners and get to know them. If you didn’t have a chance before, schedule a 10-minute chat to introduce yourself now. Don’t talk about work, get to know the human behind the “co-worker.”

Be direct and clear

No one owns a crystal ball to see into your mind, so try to express yourself clearly. We understand, having a work conversation through a screen may feel weird in the very beginning. That feeling will vanish as long as you decide to take the leap and connect with your co-workers. Also, you will notice in every conversation that you will develop more concise messages.

Our recommendation? Remember, less is more! When having 1:1 chats related to work and professional arrangements, try to pull everything together in a way that is as simple as possible and provides what your co-worker needs.

In remote work, communication is key

You are safe working at home but still need to reach your co-workers. Before the pandemic you could just walk over and have a conversation. Not anymore. Now you have to leverage technology to manage your communication and collaboration. Make sure your team agrees on which channels to use. With Slack, our teams use Channels and Groups to adjust their conversations according to their needs. For example, Channels are great spaces for teamwork and let members message each other around a common matter, like a real-time group chat. On the other hand, Groups were designed to share posts and let people interact with them, like social media.

Tip: Remote work is not only about efficiency. It has to do with culture and collaboration. When managing your conversations always make sure everyone knows where to go, is able to participate, and every voice is heard.

Stay 100% tuned in

Ok, this is important and we would like to highlight it because most of us tend to take it for granted: notifications are crucial. We get it. Your phone was full of notifications even before the pandemic. However, if you want to track your projects, having the right notifications is the best way to do it. Remember, your team is not physically together; so an important matter or message will come to you in a push notification or desktop alert.

We use Slack notifications in our office to make sure we keep track and guess what? We never miss any details! Here is our tip: Be aware of which notifications you have turned on. Make sure they’re the right ones. Then, get used to answering them as soon as possible. It might sound obvious but trust us: it only takes seconds for a pending message notification to be forgotten.

Have fun!

Yes, productivity and hard work bring great results. We believe fun is also a crucial element to consider when it comes to business success. No team member or leader will reach peak efficiency if they are not working in a comfortable and pleasant environment. How can you contribute to creating a better culture while working remotely? Through communication, of course. Don’t let screens make your conversations boring.

Most messaging solutions include many features to make collaboration as much fun as possible. Use them! With Slack, we use emojis, gifs, snippets, polls, and other resources to express ourselves in every message.

If you have read this far, you now have a better understanding of what efficient communication means in remote work scenarios. Remember, the sense of distance is in your mind and you can adapt: always use efficient and clear communication, stay 100% connected, and make it a better place to work. Follow these recommendations and you will be all set!

For more information about how we strive to improve communication for our customers, take a look at our latest success stories. Also, if you need a general overview of Salesforce’s perspective, visit this trail. Now go back to your daily assignments and enhance your communication level across your company. Your teammates will notice the difference.

Our team is doing their best while working remotely. We have worked with different organizations and their projects. We are Salesforce platform experts and offer custom development to help you build your platform and solve the right problems. If you want to know more about our work, go check out customers reviews.

What does a UX designer do?

UX (user experience) design has recently become more widely recognized. Many of us have heard the term UX used, but what does it mean? What’s the goal of a UX designer? In this article, we’ll answer these questions, share some history, and discuss how you can get started with UX design.

The Interaction Design Foundation, a pioneer in training UX designers around the world, said that UX design is defined as: “A design process used to create products that have relevant experience for users. This involves brand, design, usability, and function aspects.”

Usability and function are the essential elements of UX Design. UX has a strong relationship with users, technology, and business. In a specific digital product, it’s important that the UX designer understand the limitations of the technologies that are going to use. For example, if you are developing a responsive web project with HTML and Javascript, as a designer you need to understand the basic limitations of the technology. That way, designers avoid creating features that aren’t supported. It doesn’t mean that a UX designer needs to know about code, but they must know the principal characteristics and limitations of each technology.

Also, a designer has to know the business model of the product. Many people think that a UX designer always has to create a beautiful and innovative product, but the reality is that sometimes creating a common design is necessary to achieve the goals of the business.

User Design History

Many theories exist about the beginning of UX Design. Some say that the industrial revolution initiated the first debates about the relationship between a machine and its user.

But actually, Apple was the first company to apply the concept of Human Interaction Design. What does this mean? The understanding of the interaction between humans and any aspects of a technological device. Like computer mouse, keyboard, interface is known as Human Interaction Design. For the beginning of UX design, this is the best starting point.

In fact, in 1995 the engineer Don Norman (a pioneer of this discipline) applied this theory while he was leading a design team at Apple. He began using this concept and calling himself a UX designer. In one of his books The Design of Everyday Things (a must-read for every UX designer). He analyzes the design of all the objects around us. He delves into the concept of design and explains the importance of the communication between an object and its user, and how we should improve it. All of this is related to the digital world with things like apps, websites, software, and more.

How do I get started with UX design?

First, you must understand the main principles of design, known as the ‘Laws of design’. Psychology and mathematics backed these laws. The creator, Jon Yablonski, affirms that to have a valid foundation for every UX design, it must apply psychology and math fundamentals to build experiences that adapt to how users perceive and process digital interfaces.

More UX laws

Hick’s Law

“The time it takes to make a decision increases with the number and complexity of choices.”

Hick’s Law is based on a mathematical model that says that the time to make a decision increases as the number of options grows. Very obvious, right?

Specifically, the reality is that when we apply the mathematical model to UX, we’re talking about a fraction of a second between making one decision and another. So, we have to be very careful about the number of options we provide.

Example: The image on the left looks like a clean UI. However, compared with the image on the right, the number of options could be greatly reduced and could visually help the users to guide themselves. The option in the middle helps the user decide immediately. In any case, reducing the number of options also reduces the time of choosing and, as a result, encourages users to select the most profitable and beneficial option for the business.

It is very important to understand a company’s business model, the design objectives must be aligned with the commercial objectives. In the same way, there must be a connection between the business model and the UX model.

Jacob’s Law

“Users spend most of their time on other sites. This means that users prefer your site to work the same way as all the other sites they already know.”

For example, in this sample e-commerce interface, it looks like everything is fine and clean, but the reality is that certain things are messy.

The user has already learned a certain journey from their time on other web sites. You don’t want to make customers think about how your site works. There are certain human behaviors that we unconsciously learn and acquire. Certainly, when someone shows us something outside of what we have already learned, we feel rejection. That is why the design systems promote certain design patterns that we use every day, such as Google, Facebook, Instagram, and more

The goal of UX design is to optimize things. If the user already knows a certain pattern, it must be reused.

Aesthetic Usability Effect

“Users often perceive aesthetically pleasing design as design that’s more usable.”

This law is based on human behavior. As we see, the design on the left is neutral and hierarchies are used well. If we compare it with the second design, we see the application of colors and a much higher level of detail, aesthetically it is perceived more pleasantly. Humans tend to recognize this design as more usable. As a result, a design may be cute but it doesn’t fulfill all the functionalities.

This example highlights the importance of the UI because it helps the user to interact more easily and pleasantly, as a result, the experience improves.

UX has a bit of psychology and mathematics, this helps designers to establish which design is the most appropriate. You don’t only have to care about aesthetics, there are many other things that are a part of good UX design. Also, some mathematical models support these behaviors, so there are specific ways in which certain interfaces and experiences must be developed.

Now we have twenty laws recently added. I’m sure this will increase, you can check out all the laws here.

What is the difference between UX and UI?

UI is inside UX, with UX being the umbrella of everything. The fundamental piece in the UI. Both must be connected although is much easier to understand when they are separated.

Some differences:

User Interface (what the end-user perceives)

Branding
Colors and typography
Graphics and illustrations
UI components: buttons, inputs, etc.
Layout

User Experience (this has to be solid, that’s the only way the UI would be functional and provide a good user experience)

Definition of the problem and the needs: Detect what the problems and the main needs are. If you don’t understand the problem you will never find a solution.
Research: Research is done regarding the product, investigate the type of user, and more. It varies for each project.
Usability test: It’s very important to make usability tests. A designer must know if the product is usable or not. For example it’s important to be aware that the user can finish the process in a particular amount of time. Or certain parts of it will get you frustrated.
Information architecture: Locate all the content and ideas to generate a hierarchy and order the content. This helps the user to find things much easier.
User Flow: Design all the flows through which the user passes (this part is very important).
User Cases: Each person will have a different experience, depending on the use case. Design each experience based on different types of profile

Currently, a designer works with both UX and UI. But if we talk specifically about UX designers, they don’t necessarily have to know how to design. You need to know how to design to be able to transfer all that experience to UI, that’s the only way to have skills that can be used more generally.

Conclusion

Design is everywhere. So it seems simple but it is complex as it evolves through the digital age, making it challenging. Today we have twenty laws and overtime more concepts and insights will appear and this will continue growing. On the positive side, the design principles will always be maintained.

So as designers we have to provide solutions, that is the most important thing.

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading! Read more interesting articles here.

Resourcing with Oktana

When you outsource development, nearshore or onshore, you probably wonder about resources and whether they’re going to work well with your internal team. At Oktana, we consider our team to be your development team. We take pride in working to get the right help for each project, whether it’s a designer, developer or a whole team. Many of our clients even choose to continue with the same team on multiple projects.

Let’s take a look at how resourcing works at Oktana.

Step 1. Gather data

First, we need a clear picture of your company and project. Your account manager will work with you to understand skill requirements, project scope and anything else you feel is essential. For example:

Will we work alongside your internal team?
Will we need to integrate with existing systems?
Are there preferred development platforms, frameworks or languages?
Is business analysis, design or test automation part of the scope?

We work with you to define “done” for the project. We are an Agile company, so this often means defining a minimum viable product, or MVP. These conversations help us determine a reasonable start and end date for the project.

Step 2. Select resources

Now that we have an idea of your needs, our resourcing team will build your development team. We want to ensure your team brings the skills to meet all of the technical requirements for your project. We also want to ensure they’re a good fit in terms of personality and experience.

Everyone should feel confident in their ability to work together.

Step 3. Review resources

As our resourcing team builds your development team, you have a few options depending on how involved you want to be in the process. You can let us handle the entire process, or you can be far more hands-on.

If you want to be more hands-on, we’ll work with you to review a set of developer profiles. You can also conduct developer interviews to meet each team member before you sign-off on your development team.

What’s a developer profile?

Our resourcing team compiles a developer profile for each of our developers, which provides you with a good overview of their skillset, certifications and experience.

Step 4. Meet your development team

Our teams receive English tutoring and overlap with most of the US workday. Because of this, you are always able to chat or run planning sessions, review specs and do demos face-to-face by video. This is your development team.

As your project grows, or requirements shift, your account manager will work with you and our resourcing team to adjust the team to meet those needs.

We hope all of this information helps you understand the resourcing process better and by extension how our teams work. Our team has worked with different organizations and their projects. We are Salesforce platform experts and offer custom development to help you build your platform and solve the right problems. If you want to know more about our work, go check out our latest success stories.

Oktana is Growing: 200 Developers

The first half of 2019 has been a period defined by growth and expansion for Oktana.

200 Developers

We are thrilled to report we’ve officially reached a headcount of over 200 developers, testers and designers worldwide. As our family grows, our available skills grow which is exciting for all of our partners.

Introducing, Paraguay

Our company was founded in Montevideo, Uruguay. Like any technology company, we’re always on the hunt for great talent, encouraging our team to learn new skills to provide additional value to our partners. With that in mind, we expanded into neighboring Paraguay in late 2018, opening an office in the capital, Asunción. Over the past six months, we’ve been able to bring on new team members in Paraguay in a wide variety of roles. The team has become an essential part of the Oktana family.

Why Paraguay? The population is young and entrepreneurial. There has been increased investment by the government in science and technology and several accelerators and other programs have launched to help fuel entrepreneurship. For us, this is the right environment to find developers eager to work on big projects and expand their knowledge.

Fun Facts about Paraguay

Population: 7,000,000+
Slightly smaller than the state of California
Literacy rate is 94% (vs. 86% in the United States)
World’s fourth-largest exporter of electricity
Host of Guinness Book of World Records world’s largest barbecue, attended by approximately 30,000 people

Next Stop: Peru

With offices in New York, San Francisco, Montevideo, and now Asunción, where are we headed next? After the successful expansion into Asunción, we looked for other cities to grow into and found Lima. So, we’re excited to announce our office in Lima, Peru is open and ready for business.

Why Peru? The capital, Lima, has a population of over nine million people, making it one of the largest cities in South America. Because the majority of our customers are based in the United States, it’s important for us to ensure our team schedules align with US timezones and work hours to enable collaboration. Like Paraguay, Peru’s workday naturally overlaps with the US workday. Peru is a growing and stable country, so we’re confident it’s a place we will be able to continue to grow.

Fun Facts about Peru

Population: 30,000,000+
Nearly twice the size of Texas
Founded in 1551, National University of San Marcos is the oldest in the Americas
Incan Empire was larger than imperial Rome at its peak
Home to both the world’s highest sand dune and deepest canyon

Company Culture

As we continue to expand, it’s important to ensure our Oktana family feels connected regardless of location so we’re increasingly focused on building our company culture and communication between offices. As the year progresses, we may reach out to you, as our partners, to share your story so each developer is able to better understand the projects keeping their colleagues up at night.

MuleSoft & Informatica Certification

With a growing team, we’ve also expanded on our certification game. We believe in continuous learning, so our developers are always training and working on new certifications. We recently stepped outside of core Salesforce certifications to explore other options that fit our team, including MuleSoft and Informatica certifications.

Hope you’ve enjoyed learning more about us. Our team has worked with different organizations and their projects. We are Salesforce platform experts and offer custom development to help you build your platform and solve the right problems. If you want to know more about our work, go check out our latest success stories.

Pledging 1% at Wishing Well Garden

This past Monday, 03/18, the team in New York got together in the Bronx to help work on getting the Wishing Well Community Garden ready for the spring in conjunction with the great folks at GrowNYC. This project was part of our ongoing 1% Pledge to give back to our community.

GrowNYC is a fantastic local organization that focuses on environmental issues through working directly in communities to help make them green and healthier. Founded in 1970 under the name, Council on the Environment of New York City, GrowNYC originally focused on policy issues but over time they have become much more focused on ground-level work in communities. These days they help communities all across New York City through community garden programs, educational programs with children, recycling, and running community farmers markets. We were thrilled to have the opportunity to work directly with them to help get one of their smaller gardens ready for the spring.

On Monday, we got together and met with David from GrowNYC at the Wishing Well Community Garden in the Bronx. Our goal was to help get everything cleaned up and ready for the local gardeners to come and start planting their gardens once it warms up. It was a great day for everyone on our team. We began with some quick clean-up, getting dead plants and garbage out of some of the planting boxes. Once we finished cleaning out the boxes we spent the rest of the morning filling the boxes with fresh soil provided to the garden by the city. It was great to work with our hands and see the results of all our labor as we went along.

When we’d finished shoveling dirt it was time to set back to clean up. Half of the community garden is dedicated to locals in the community, they can reserve a box and use it to grow plants over the course of the season. The other half of the garden is used by GrowNYC for educational programs where they teach teens in the community all about growing their own plants and how to eat healthy at the same time. Our host, David, runs the program out of the Wishing Well garden. When we finished filling the boxes we helped him clear out the student area to get it ready for the kids to come in and plant for themselves. This involved a lot of raking up dead leaves for compost and collecting trash that had been scattered around the area.

This experience is one that we’re never going to forget. It was a great chance for everyone to get out into the city and feel like we’re having a real impact on the community around us. Thanks to the work of our team the Wishing Well Community Garden is well on its way to being ready for the spring. Gardens like this allow the community to work together and share outside space. It’s a place for people to visit, relax, and get away for a moment. It feels great that we helped in a small way.

We all grew through our time together and I know we’re all excited about what we can do next. We’ll definitely be heading back up to Wishing Well sometime this spring to see how far it’s come since we were there.

In 2020, Oktana was awarded a Silver rating by Ecovadis for its commitment to sustainability. We have aligned to three of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Gender Equality, Decent Work & Economic and Growth Responsible Consumption & Production.