Introducing Board's Center of Excellence

Holly Rieke

With the recent launch of our new Board Community experience, we want to introduce one of the amazing teams that is key to bringing some of the most crucial content and knowledge to all of us. It is with great pleasure we introduce our internal Board Center of Excellence (CoE). This small, yet mighty and talented, team of 10 brings over 70 years of combined experience working with customers, partners, and employees to bring the benefits of our Board platform to life. 

While the CoE plays many roles, within the Community they are the main source of our Best Practices content and are always looking for ways to empower our Board ecosystem to become more familiar with the power of the platform and create experts within our customer and partner communities.  

The CoE’s mission is to support our entire ecosystem by sharing those decades of experience with the world. Now, let’s meet this talented group of experts! 

Meet the Team

Learn More—Featuring Andrea Scazzosi and Federica Antonelli 

How long have you been with Board and what are some key roles you have held during your time here? 

Andrea: I joined the company early in 2006 after a decade of experience in management consulting. An Board, I've covered a variety of roles from consultant, project manager, solution architect, and services manager. I spent my career in the field, building solutions and helping customers satisfy their business needs. Currently, I’m leading the Center of Excellence Team. 

Federica: I have been at Board for eight years, starting in 2015 as a consultant. In my first years, I travelled a lot around our Board countries working in the field with partners and colleagues. I grew up in the field as a consultant, later becoming a senior consultant and going the project management route but with a deep knowledge of our tool, Board. I am currently involved as a project manager in strategic projects and work on internal initiatives. 

In your opinion, what makes the Board Platform so special? 

Andrea: Board Platform is so unique that is difficult to say just one... What I see from my experience is that our customers really appreciate the flexibility, modularity, and adaptability of the platform to their specific business needs. The rapidity of building a solution with Board is what is perceived as the biggest value by our customers; They can immediately appreciate the results and the benefits since the first phases of the project. You can understand how important this is in implementing a solution. The customer is part of the development team, learning day by day how Board works and actively contributing to the success of the project. I think this makes Board platform so special. 

Federica: Any business process can be implemented with Board. The way Board is adaptable and customizable is one of the factors that our customers have always appreciated the most. Moreover, the toolkit approach is simple and understandable also from users without a technical background. It’s easy to attract and engage business users. Sometimes for them the mental shift towards the application logic is a challenge, but they are very enthusiastic and willing to learn. They want to be part of the implementation journey, and they can contribute to the overall result. 

As the CoE, your experience and contributions at Board are vast and varied. Focusing on the newly-launched Best Practices, how will these benefit customers in getting the most out of the platform? 

Andrea: We, as Center of Excellence, have been heavily involved in a huge number of customer’s projects during the last years. This allowed us to accumulate a deep knowledge of the platform from a technical and functional perspective. I think now is the right time to unlock this massive experience and make it available for all Board Users and Developers. I see the new Community as the perfect place where this can happen. We will regularly publish Best Practices and How-To Guides that can help clients, partners, and board colleagues get the most out of the tool, successfully delivering high-value, high-quality solutions to our clients. 

Federica: Best Practices are all the unwritten rules we have learnt through field experience in international and strategic projects. Board's flexibility and modularity mean that alternative routes can be taken to achieve the same result, and this is often a challenge for beginners. The most experienced consultants know by default how to approach the most common requests and avoid complexities and common mistakes; this is the result of experience. The aim of the Best Practices is to transfer this experience accumulated over years of work in the field to those who are just starting. Sharing each other's experience and writing the unwritten on paper is the game changer! 

Community is a great place for customers and partners to self-service and find the answers they need quickly. What do you like most about the new Board Community experience?  

Andrea: The Community is a great place to share experiences easily and quickly with a massive audience. What I appreciate the most is the opportunity to have a bi-directional communication. Community is a virtual ecosystem where anyone makes his contribution to the learning process. In my vision, each Community member will play a double role: learning from others and teaching others as well, sharing his experience.  

Federica: I see the Community as a centralized repository of Board experience – this is huge. The opportunity to influence and guide a wide audience and give technical guidance sharing the CoE and anyone experience is really powerful, and it’s a way to always be connected. 

How can the Community connect with the CoE to share feedback or ask questions?  

Andrea: The Center of Excellence team is actively monitoring the Best Practices section and the Platform Forum. We are committed to providing members with an outstanding experience this year. As you explore the Best Practices, please share your feedback directly in the ‘comments’ section. For platform-related questions, post them directly to the Platform Forum to maximize visibility and responses. 

Federica: We have just started with Best Practices, and we have many other topics that will soon be published and shared with the Community. We hope that each of these topics will spark a discussion and that everyone will share common experiences/problems/errors, whatever will help others who are approaching the same. We will actively participate in any discussion, so do not be shy in sharing your thoughts and experiences. 

We want to hear from you. Tell us what you think about the new Best Practices section in the comments below.