The Conditionals: Mixed

Time to roll out the heavy artillery.
Over the course of the previous three weeks, we have been discussing the regular conditionals — the zero, first, second, and third. We explained how they are used and how we need to pay attention to the patterns that each of them has in order to convey the intended message in the correct way.

Today, we are wrapping up the conditional saga by mixing things up a little bit. How so? Well, check it out!

First things first — the regular conditionals’ recap:

• The Zero: to talk about events that…

The Conditionals: Regular (Second and Third)

Continuing on the same note this week as we are reaching the last of the regular conditionals — the infamous Third Conditional.

So far we have discussed three of them and in that way covered the future and the present, but there has still been no say on the past. Now, it may sound shocking, but this conditional is actually the easiest to remember as it has only one purpose, and that is to talk about regrets from the past. If only… Alas!

Once again, we will revise the previous newsletter, i.e. …

The Conditionals: Regular (First and Second)

If you have read the previous story, you will find yourselves in a position to further improve your knowledge on conditionals with this one. This time around, we are raising the bar by one notch and introducing the Second Conditional. The focus will be on how to differentiate between the first and the second conditional, i.e. in which situations each of them should be used so that the right message is conveyed.

Before we begin, we just need to recap the previous story in two short points:

• The Zero Conditional — We use it…

The Conditionals: Regular (Zero and First)

New year, new me — as the saying goes. But some things should not change. Like grammar. :BaDumTss:

Conditional sentences are one of those grammatical lessons that people find difficult to digest. One of the reasons behind this is the lack of logic that follows English tenses. Just imagine — you spend years learning the 12 tenses and all of a sudden a wild conditional shows up saying that we need to use present tenses to talk about the future or past tenses to talk about the present (or the future). Lord almighty!

Yet…

The Symphony Way: Effective Communication by Our Talent Development Department vol. 3

One-on-one conversations are difficult enough, but group communication can prove to be even more troublesome at times.

Facilitating meetings, discussions, sprint reviews and plannings, or any other group-type communication is a completely different topic — a topic that will be covered in this Newlentina. Our TDD is bringing this sub-topic to a conclusion by focusing on group discussions and their facilitation while providing advice on how to get the most out of each participant and help them have their voice heard.

The role of the facilitator

To facilitate…

The Symphony Way: Effective Communication by Our Talent Development Department vol. 2

The last time we wrote, Valentina laid out a general view on effective communication thus encompassing a fairly large number of sub-topics. Today, she is narrowing down the focus on presentation skills and covering the topic of why a solid preparation makes it for effective delivery and how to better both of them.

A presentation can be a demo session, team presentation, workshop, a Flow session, meetup, or any other form of public speaking. These situations can be challenging since you need to find the best way to…

The Symphony Way: Effective Communication by Our Talent Development Department vol. 1

As we discussed in the previous three newsletters, a simple and concise visual presentation can do magic for our flow. It becomes elegant, straight-to-the-point, but most important of all — clearly understandable.

On the other hand, the visual part is only one of the parts of any presentation, while communication is the heart and soul of it, which is why we invited Valentina Kalaj, our Talent Development Manager, to share her insight into this topic and her understanding of communication not only while presenting but also in general…

The Symphony Way: Flows and Presentations by Our Designers vol. 3

Having presented you with some tips and tricks on how to make your presentation in the best, but at the same time simplest, way possible, we are ending the first part of this series with a list of examples that aim to improve the details even more. We will present them one by one — practical visual examples followed by their explanations.

The heading needs to be aligned with the text, so we need to be careful about indentation as it can ruin the visual effect.