At ACA Group, we've always believed that the key to success lies in continuous learning and relentless improvement. That's why we recently hosted our second knowledge-sharing event of the year on September 20, 2023. This event brought together project managers and analysts to delve into essential topics crucial to our mission of delivering successful projects. Behavior Driven Development (BDD): Unlocking the Potential During the event, we featured a presentation by Niels Berghen introducing Behavior Driven Development (BDD). This session explored the core principles of BBD and how it can be integrated into our project management workflow. By focusing on defining behavior from a user's perspective, BDD allows us to create software that truly meets our clients’ needs. We discussed the importance of collaboration between clients, developers, and testers when writing BDD scenarios. These scenarios bridge business requirements and technical implementation, ensuring that every feature we deliver aligns perfectly with user expectations. Lessons Learned: The Heart of Project Improvement During the event, Ann Verwee delivered another insightful session centered on "Lessons Learned" from one of our past projects. Regardless of its outcome, each project provides invaluable lessons that can shape our future success. This open and candid discussion allowed us to identify common patterns and pitfalls we can avoid in future projects. By reflecting on these lessons learned, we're continuously refining our processes and becoming even more adept at delivering successful projects. Slicing the Cake: A Masterclass in User Story Splitting One of the event's highlights was a captivating presentation by Koen Vastmans, the owner of simu-learn.net , who introduced us to the intriguing world of "Slicing the Cake." This innovative game, born out of Koen's experiences in the field, leverages simulations, and gamification to impart agile principles and techniques. "Slicing the Cake" draws inspiration from Richard Lawrence's story-splitting patterns. During the presentation, Koen explained the "why" and "how" of the game, showcasing its potential as a powerful tool for learning to write valuable user stories. In an engaging and interactive format, we played a game demonstrating how these slicing patterns work in practice. Our attendees gained a deeper understanding of this critical skill by experiencing how to break down complex user stories into smaller, more manageable pieces. Building Stronger Bonds Over Pizza At ACA Group, no event is complete without a bit of entertainment, fun, and camaraderie. After the enriching knowledge-sharing session, we shared delicious pizza and continued our discussions. These moments of informal interaction strengthen our bonds and foster a culture of collaboration within our team. Knowledge-sharing events like this are the cornerstone of our commitment to delivering successful projects. By equipping our teams with the latest insights and best practices, we are better positioned to not only meet but surpass our clients’ expectations. We look forward to more such enlightening sessions in the future as we continue to empower our teams with the knowledge and tools necessary to excel in the ever-evolving world of agile development.

The museum pass, the most comprehensive museum subscription in Belgium, launches a digital version of the pass. From now on, subscribers can use their smartphone to visit museums. With the museum pass, visitors gain access to more than 200 Belgian museums and exhibits. Together with publiq , we previously took care of the technical implementation of the physical museum pass. This current physical card, which serves as an entrance ticket, is now complemented by a digital version on a smartphone. This way, museumPASSmusées wants to continue their efforts concerning digitization and user-friendliness. Digital museum pass is available right away Erika T’Jaeckx from museumPASSmusées explains the digital pass: “From subscriber surveys from last year, we learned that new subscribers don't like waiting for the shipment of their museum pass.” The interest for a digital version, therefore, was substantial. “New subscribers have access to the digital museum pass right away after their purchase. That means they're able to visit museums immediately and that is an enormous improvement, especially today since contactless is becoming the new standard.” In the new app, users will find a personal QR code, which acts as an entrance ticket at the reception desk of museums. The app will soon be expanded with content about the range of museums to visit. Proud of our close collaboration Since ACA Group already had experience with the IT behind the physical museum pass, we understood the context very well and were able to develop quickly. Together with publiq, we worked in close collaboration to be able to offer users a beautiful and user-friendly app. We carefully crafted the app's UX and UI thanks to a lot of best practices, feedback and prototyping. We're proud of the result and the trust between ACA and publiq! Populair pass The popularity of the museum pass has only increased since its launch in 2018. Last year, 90,000 passes were sold, which accounted for half a million museum visits. The payments of museumPASSmusées to the museum industry increased to 2.5 million euros, a new record. The amount of participating museums is on the rise as well. The Suske Wiske museum in Kalmthout and the AfricaMuseum in Tervuren have recently joined the ranks, for example.

Liferay creates software that helps other companies create digital experiences on web, mobile, and connected devices. Each year, they host the Liferay global partner summit and give Awards in different categories to some of their partners. These awards recognize Liferay Channel Partners who have proven themselves consistently exceptional at delivering on client needs and driving business results. The award categories include global and regional recognitions for: Overall Growth, Overall Sales, Global Systems Integrator, Innovation, Marketing Excellence, Social Responsibility, and Rising Stars. "We are very proud to recognize these outstanding partners and celebrate their achievements," said Todd Jarvis, VP of Global Channel Sales at Liferay. "Partnerships and Alliances are critical to Liferay's continued success and we are committed to making our global partner ecosystem stronger each year. This year's award recipients, in particular, excel in having extensive technology, industry, and solutions expertise and share Liferay’s commitment to providing innovative solutions for our mutual clients." And the award goes to... We are really proud to announce that ACA received the award for Social Responsibility Partner of the Year once again! In previous years, we've already had the privilege of being awarded with this beautiful recognition. The Social Responsibility award honors the partner recognized for most closely aligning with Liferay’s mission of making technology useful, investing in communities, and ensuring that everyone has a chance to meet their full potential in serving others. ACA Group strives to be as sustainable as possible by taking care of our team’s talents, society, environment and the economy. We are committed to the 17 international UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Therefore we're extemely happy to achieve this award for all our work. We're pleased to announce that ACA Group is the Global Social Responsibility partner of the year. This comes from the hard work they put into causing a positive impact on the world through community work, engagement with charities, organizing fundraising activities, and also offering innovative and sustainable solutions to customers. This matches not only Liferay's core values, but also is an example of how we can create synergy to help others thrive. — Edmund Dueck, VP of Sales at Liferay