What‘s on our mind

AI agents aren’t coming—they’re already doing your job better. This month, we show you how to stop delegating to humans and start building workflows where agents do the heavy lifting. Join the AI-native era—before it leaves you behind.

New Zealand entered 2025 in a recession, but leaders are feeling optimistic about the economy ramping up in the second half of the year. Despite this, business leaders remain cautious, with many struggling to set meaningful customer goals. Common pitfalls include making assumptions about customer needs, rushing into initiatives without proper research, and letting bureaucracy hinder customer interactions. Successful organisations actively involve customers in their execution, use AI and data analytics, and define specific metrics to measure customer satisfaction. They also foster a culture of open dialogue and iterative learning to create solutions that adapt to evolving customer needs, ensuring long-term growth and competitive advantage.

Working with clients from different industries across the country, we have observed that organisations take different approaches when it comes to formulating their strategy.

Executing strategy is one of the most significant and impactful challenges companies face today, however, turning these lofty ambitions into actionable plans requires more than just a vision.

Steph Khoo, Data Experience Designer at X is Y, shares how a simple mindset shift helped her understand and appreciate the impact of her work on our clients’ businesses.

Our Ways of Working Maturity Assessment Tool is providing essential insights into organisational maturity. We take a look at three case studies that illustrate the tool’s capability to transform insights into actionable results and sustainable success.

When you’re creating a solution with a particular type of user or audience, it makes sense to have them participate closely in the process. Our approach to user testing is to make it a fun, engaging and meaningful process for those involved, and adapted to suit different clients and different groups of users. Here’s more on what works for us.

Is Agile still relevant? We've witnessed a downturn in its popularity, but we think that just like the initial Agile zeal, the current distaste will be self-correcting. Here are some key points worth bearing in mind.

Strategic foresight is a planning-oriented discipline that helps organisations navigate uncertainty, convert risks into opportunities, and remain resilient amid change and disruption. In this piece, we share some tips on how to use strategic foresight to move your business from reactive to future-ready.

Consider your business to be a ‘data-driven’ organisation? The first step is to stop calling it data-driven and start calling it goal-driven. It’s the movement towards your goals, where data and analytics play a key part. So, the question, then, is really: what does it look like to be goal-driven?

As a distributed team, we have our preferred platforms for communicating and collaborating on projects - ones we confidently recommend to our clients to support new ways of working in their organisation, too. We’re often asked what we use in our business, so here are our top picks.

There’s a small addition you can make to your meetings that will have a big impact on how your team engages: the check-in. We explore the why, the how and the what of making check-ins a part of your meeting culture.

There’s a narrative that’s recently emerged in the data and analytics industry. It’s that storytelling is a skillset that analytics practitioners need to have in order for business users to understand the analysis that they’re presenting. Here’s why we see this approach as potentially problematic.

Working in a squad may be a break away from the more traditional functional team that most organisations are used to. We’ve broken down the advantages that come with this approach, and the steps you can take to make change happen in your organisation.

A recent report showed that 90% of organisations are now embracing hybrid work. But managing your people in a remote working world also comes with new considerations - not only for your employees, but for you, the leaders who play a part in supporting them. Here’s what to keep in mind.

The more flexible and geographically distributed a workplace gets, the more certainty there needs to be around exactly what is expected by all parties in a working relationship. Here are our tips for making the implicit explicit so everyone can do their best work in an effective, supportive and collaborative workplace.

With employees no longer wanting to be tied to their desks, the physical workspace is changing to accommodate this new flexibility. This article looks at how, through technology and intentional practices, you can create a more structured view of how the hybrid workspace supports your people in doing their best work.

We see leaders with big ideas they want to be executed immediately, but we don't see many who consider the total cost of the change before announcing their new idea. Read more on the potential hidden costs you may not have considered.

What do we mean when we talk about ‘Ways of Working’, and more importantly, what should it mean for you? Watch this panel interview with X is Y leaders, where we discuss our approach to new ways of working across business, process and people.

Watch this insightful panel interview, where we asked three X is Y clients to share more about their experience, lessons through their D&A journey, and why it’s OK to seek out help to get this important area of your business right.

With numerous studies suggesting connectedness is the number one challenge leaders face in the move to hybrid models of work, it’s ever more critical that we intentionally design workplace rituals if we are to build high performing teams. Here are our tips for creating and leveraging rituals in your business.

Could your organisation benefit from the skills of a data visualiser? And is there really a need to differentiate roles between a data visualiser and a data engineer? X is Y Data Visualisation Chapter Lead, Sam, shares his take on the difference a data visualiser can make to how well you leverage data in your business.

We use Poker Planning cards in a variety of ways. Not only for estimating complexity, but for feasibility, risk, value - anything where it is useful to gain an understanding of how tough or valuable something might be to do. Find out more about how you can use them in your organisation to have valuable discussions.

There are plenty of conversations happening out there on business, management, performance and personal growth - but these are some of our top podcast picks that get us inspired.

It’s estimated that around 70% of people experience the imposter phenomenon. With stats like that, there’s a good chance you are one of them. We spoke to X is Y Data Visualiser, Steph, about how she has learnt to understand and manage imposter feelings - have a read of her tips here.

How do you create a connected environment in a hybrid and distributed working world? We share five key things to consider for building and maintaining strong, flexible teams through productive, intentional meetings wherever your people are working.

There’s plenty of literature out there on business and management - but these are some of our recent top picks that we think are in alignment with today’s ways of working

One of the things we’re most often asked is “what is the future of work?”. While it’s tempting to simply answer “robots”, the truth is more complex. We explore what organisations need to consider in order to succeed in a new world of work.

While all organisations recognise the benefits of making their customers happy, the best of them are also focusing on the experience of employees. We share more on what employees really want - and how to give it to them.

What’s holding you back from making the move to agile methodology? X is Y Management Consultant, Laura, has reflected on her own experience moving from traditional ways of working to the agile approach we use with our client projects.  Here, she shares seven key things that Data & Analytics teams and business users might expect themselves when making the change.

As the saying goes - the more reflective you are, the more effective you are - which is why regular team retrospective ceremonies are an important tool in building a high performing organisation. Here's our take on running effective retrospectives.

A game changing announcement, not for just Snowflake users and considerers, but also the Data Engineering industry as whole, has arrived. We were lucky enough to participate in the private beta and here’s what we found by putting the integration through its paces.

Our ability to deliver value quickly relies on our ability to get the information we need, fast. To do that, we need our clients’ representatives to trust us - but we recognise that trust doesn’t come with luck, it has to be earned. Here’s our formula for building a solid foundation of trust.

With growing awareness of the advantages that data can bring to maximising revenue and leveraging untapped business potential, it raises the question: do you build data capability in-house, or do you short-circuit potential mistakes and get there faster with external consultancy? Here’s why bringing in the expertise and external capacity offers advantages that not only fast-track initial outcomes, but also lay the foundations for long-term analytics maturity.

Are you collecting the right data to help you achieve your goals? Most businesses collect data for an operational need, not an analytical one - which is not exactly useful when it comes time to see what data can tell them about how their business is performing. That's why we take a different approach. Find out why ignoring your data, and starting with business goals first, can change the course of destiny for your organisation.

At a time when there’s tough competition to win the war on talent, we know we’re armed with more than just a few perks. Here are some of the ways we take action that actually reflects the respect we have for the time, contribution and effort of our people.

The allure of the spreadsheet is ubiquitous, but how many actually provide the accurate insight you need to make immediate business decisions? There’s a good chance that there’s unnecessary waste and risk in your organisation - but before you jump straight to automation, it pays to step back and define your goals. Here’s why.

Many organisations battle with benefits. Either benefits aren’t being measured at all, or they are being measured, but they are too big or conceptual to land. So, how do you frame, realise and then measure the value your business offers? Here’s where we start.