AgileTODAY

PERSPECTIVES FOR THE ENTERPRISE INNOVATOR

Volume #11 | MARCH 2016

Why is Melbourne
the home of the
marketplace?
Redbubble, Envato, REA...

Kata comes to
Melbourne with
Hkan Forss

Agile Coach from the

makers of Candy Crush

Operationalising
Customer Centricity

Agile Australia 2016

WORKSHOPS ANNOUNCED!

with Lean specialist David Joyce

WIN
Sandy
li &
Mamo es
Mol
d
i
v
a
D
book

Meet Agile Australias 2016 Chairs & Advisors!

Agile

AUSTRALIA16

IS PROUDLY SPONSORED BY
TITLE SPONSOR

GOLD SPONSORS

SILVER SPONSORS

SUPPORTER

WWW.AGILEAUSTRALIA.COM.AU

CONTENTS

Operationalizing Customer Centricity. . . . . 4

Lightning Letters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Introducing the Improvement Kata and

Coaching Kata. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Agile, Melbourne marketplace. . . . . . . . . . . 15

Agile Australia 2016 Chairs and Advisors

share their visions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Creating Great Teams: How Self-Selection

Lets People Excel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Letter
from the
Editor
Welcome to AgileTODAY, the
Melbourne issue!
Here at the AgileTODAY
headquarters, weve been
powering ahead creating the
eighth annual Agile Australia
conference, which this year will
return to Melbourne.
Agile Australia 2016 will
take place on Monday 20
Tuesday 21 June 2016 at the
Melbourne Convention Centre.
To celebrate our return to
Melbourne, Beverley Head
considers why Melbourne is
so important for marketplaces
in her feature on Agile,
Melbourne marketplace (p 15).
This years conference theme
is Towards the Agile Country,
and in 2016 the Agile Australia
conference will focus on
building an environment in
which learning is constant,

empathy permeates all that

we do, and where we embrace
change and embed innovation
in order to secure Australias
future prosperity.
We asked our 2016 Agile
Australia Advisors and
Chairs how they envisage a
movement towards the Agile
country -- and on page (p 8)
they share their vision for an
Agile future.
This years event will also
feature an incredible range of
workshops from the leaders
of the Agile community. You
can find out more about these
deep-dive learning experiences
here (page 10). One of the
workshops will be led by Agile
coaches and authors Sandy
Mamoli and David Mole, whose
recent book Creating Great
Teams: How Self-Selection Lets
People Excel is reviewed by

Esther Derby on (p 18). You

can win a copy of the book
through the Lightning Letters
competition (p 14).
This edition explores a range
of approaches and frameworks
which will prove central to
Agile Australia 2016. You
can get a sneak peek at
keynote speaker Hakan Forss
introduction to the Kata on
(p 6), and hear from invited
speaker David Joyce on
how to implement customer
centricity (p 4).
Dont forget, we welcome your
feedback and contributions
to the AgileTODAY magazine.
You can send us your
comments and article ideas at
editor@agiletoday.com.au.
Best wishes,
Claire Hansen
Editor
March 2016 AgileTODAY | 3

RYAN MCNAUGHT / THEBRICKMAN.COM

Agile workshops announced. . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Operationalizing
Customer
Centricity
BY DAVID JOYCE
DAVID IS A SPEAKER AT AGILE AUSTRALIA 2016 AND A LEADING AUTHORITY
ON ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE AND THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF LEAN.

It is now common to hear leaders in the Private,

Typically, leaders do not understand customer

Public and Third sector espouse we must put the

demand nor design from this perspective. The

customer first and focus on customers needs, the

relationship norm is purely transactional through

strategy being a totally customer centric approach.

multiple front doors. Customers are sometimes

All nice words. How do you operationalise them?

forced to transact in a standard way, or need

Leaders think that if employees just follow the

be customer centric logic, the organisation will reap
the benefits. Pleasant dreams1. Despite the rhetoric,
as customers, we see little evidence of service
improving; the results are not matching the intent.
The problem is one of perspective and design.

A Consequence of Perspective and Design

Organisations are typically broken into separate
functions and channels. Each have a different
leader, who in turn, has their own functional goals,
objectives and budgets. The assumption is that if
each function does their bit, the whole will work. A
flawed assumption.
There are some leaders who recognise the flaw
in this design, and overlay owners of end-to-end
horizontal processes. Other leaders spin-off an
organisation, or create innovation labs, which are set
apart from the main organisation and are freed up to
work more innovatively.
The flaw is; from what perspective are people
taking? From what perspective are they determining
the real problems to solve?
Customers do not think of organisational

educating to transact in a way that is convenient for

the organisation. This design leads to failure demand
entering their organisation (demand caused by a
failure to do something, or do something right for a
customer2).
You might be surprised to learn that failure
demand can account for as much as 80% of all
demand entering into an organisation3. Poor
capability of delivering against what matters to
customers is also a consequence of this design,
leading to more failure demand.
Organisations become exemplars in repair.
Imagine the economics.

Understand, Redesign, Operationalise

The above may sound like interesting theory.
What can you do differently on Monday?
The starting point for real change is finding out
what matters to customers, then building a common
and shared understanding of how, and how well, the
organisation delivers what matters to customers
today, and why it is that way.
This approach is unusual, in that it helps
leaders study their organisations as a prelude to

functions, budgets, end-to-end processes, innovation

improvement. Seeing an organisation, as a customer

labs, or channels. They think of an organisation from

sees it, shifts their starting-place from thinking they

the outside-in, holistically.

know what their problems are, to one where leaders

They just want an organisation to understand

what matters to them and deliver it.

4 | March 2016 AgileTODAY

discover they have quite different problems to solve

from a customers perspective. As a consequence,
it enables leaders to make informed, empirical,

The starting point for real change is finding out what matters to
customers, then building a common and shared understanding
of how, and how well, the organisation delivers what matters to
customers today, and why it is that way.
The executive wanted to test if a different

decisions on what and where to take action for the

greatest betterment for customers. Where to invest

method could be used to transform this major,

and innovate becomes illuminated.

negative, customer experience. The aim was to learn

This new perspective leads to redesigning a

how to move customers perfectly.

customer shaped service, enabling better ways

When demand was studied from a customers

for attracting, acquiring, growing and retaining

perspective, the real nature of what customers

customers today and tomorrow. Customer centricity

wanted became much more apparent. Customer

is reconceived and operationalised.

demands placed on the organisation determined

Profound Improvements in Performance

how things should be stitched together. This

Jaw dropping increases in service and

efficiency are the result. For example, after redesign,
organisations see huge positive swings in Net
Promoter Score5. Swathes of work, that add no value

knowledge enabled the executive to see important

and counterintuitive phenomena for the first time,
and revealed how conventional measures had kept
the phenomena hidden.

to customers, are removed from the operation. There

Once executives understood the problems

are large reductions in call volumes coming into the

generated by the current work design, and had a

Contact Centre. Complaints go down, compliments

view of what needed to be challenged to improve

and advocacy go up. Digital customers use services

performance, they agreed to redesign to see if a

to search and fulfil, rather than progress chase

perfect move experience could be operationalised.

(where is my?) or to complain on social media.

As a consequence of the redesign, as evidenced

As a result of the redesign, after just a few

months, the previous Net Promoter Score5 of -40

by staff engagement scores, staff morale rockets,

leapt to +80, a 120 point increase. Failure demand

and improved financial results follow; using these

generated by the organisation reduced from an

methods organisations have taken up to 20% of

astonishing 54% to 5%. Staff absenteeism declined

costs out of their operation, and have seen their

from 12% to 4%. Happier customers became loyal

sales revenue increased by up to 40%. Organisations

to the company, and consequently, purchased more

see customer churn fall dramatically, as customers

products and services.

receiving better service become loathe to move to

Designing from a customer perspective, against

competitors.

knowledge of what matters to your customers, and

Theory Into Application

removing what gets in the way, will unlock similar

These numbers may seem appealing. Here is a

profound improvements in performance for you too.

recent example of how they are obtained.

Moving house when contracted to a large
Australasian utility company was renowned within
the community as a difficult and painful process. The
company itself understood this and had established
a specialist group to improve performance.
For over 18 months the group designed and
operationalised conventional approaches for
improvement, which resulted in no discernible
benefit to the moving experience.

W. Edwards Deming, 1982, Out of the Crisis, MIT Press, p.134.

John Seddon, 2014, The Whitehall Effect: How Whitehall Became
the Enemy of Great Public Services
3
John Seddon, 2003, Freedom from Command and Control,
Vanguard Education, p.26.
4
John Seddon, 1996, Systems thinking - management by doing the
right thing, Vanguard Education
5
Net Promoter Score is a customer loyalty metric developed by
(and a registered trademark of) Fred Reichheld, Bain & Company,
and Satmetrix
1

March 2016 AgileTODAY | 5

Introducing the
Improvement Kata
and Coaching Kata
By Hkan Forss
Hkan is an Agile Coach at King, the makers of Candy Crush Saga.
He is well-versed in Agile, Lean, and Kata, and is known for his Lego presentations.

What is a Kata?

action2. If the Kata itself is relatively static, the

Kata means pattern, routine, habits or a way

content of the Kata is continually modified

of doing things. Kata is about creating a fast

as we execute it, based on the situation and

muscle memory of how to take skilful action

context in real-time. Nonaka also describes Kata

instantaneously in a situation without having

as different from a routine because it contains a

to go through a slower, logical procedure. This

continuous self-renewal process.

frees your slower, logical thinking to focus on

the problem at hand.

Kata is not simply to blindly copy, but to

improve in an evolutionary way. You learn and

We can understand the Kata in the context of

evolve a Kata through the three stages of the

Daniel Kahnemans book, Thinking, Fast and

learning cycle: Shu (learn), Ha (break), and Ri

Slow1. Kahneman differentiates between two

(create). In the first stage, Shu, you learn by

systems: system one is fast, automatic, and

following the teacher. You imitate the teachers

subconscious; and system two is slow, effortful,

practices, values, and thinking. You will only

logical, and conscious. The Kata is like system

move on to the next stage when you have

one, and using this system frees us to focus the

made the teachers Kata your own. In the Ha

energies of system two on a chosen problem or

stage, you break from the teachers practices

challenge.

and make modifications based on your own

creativity. Then, in the Ri stage, you leave the

In the book Managing Flow, Ikujiro Nonaka

teacher and you begin to create your own

defines Kata as a traditional Japanese code

unique Kata. As you expand your knowledge

of knowledge that describes a process of

into new areas, you will loop back to the Shu

synthesizing thought and behaviour in skilful

stage for those areas in an ever-growing spiral

action: the metacognition of reflection in

of knowledge.

Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011.
http://us.macmillan.com/thinkingfastandslow/danielkahneman.
2
Ikujiro Nonaka, Ryoko Toyama and Toru Hirata, Managing Flow: A Process Theory of the Knowledge-Based Firm, Palgrave Macmillan,
2008., http://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9780230553767.
1

6 | March 2016 AgileTODAY

The Improvement Kata and Coaching Kata

The Improvement Kata and Coaching Kata form a general-purpose framework for learning and
improving in a world of uncertainty. It is a framework to help us build a learning organisation
where the people doing the work will solve their own problems using a scientific approach. It is a
framework for continuous probing through the unknown, using small daily experiments.

Improvement Kata

A fractal framework

The Improvement Kata forms a habit of

The Improvement Kata and Coaching Kata

continuous learning and improvement. The

operate as a fractal framework which can form

Improvement Kata guides the learners and

the foundation of a learning organisation.

teams the people doing the work through

Fractal refers to the way that a systems levels

a process focused on learning and improving.

and behavioural patterns mirror each other. For

In the Improvement Kata we take small daily

example, at one level a group of learners will

steps through the fog of uncertainty using an

be led by a leader or coach. This same leader

experimental approach.

or coach also takes on the role of learner in the

leadership team. This pattern repeats through

Coaching Kata

all levels of the organisation up to the CEO.

The second and equally important part of the

The fractal structure ensures that everyone

Kata framework is the Coaching Kata. The

in the organisation is involved in learning and

Coaching Kata transforms your organisations

improving the organisation every day.

leaders into coaches and enablers in a

constantly learning environment. The Coaching
Kata supports and challenges the learners as
they run the Improvement Kata.

Created by Hkan Forss @hakanforss http://hakanforss.wordpress.com

Hkan Forss will be speaking at Agile Australia 2016 and running workshops on
The Toyota Kata Experience. Find out more at www.agileaustralia.com.au.
March 2016 AgileTODAY | 7

The Agile Australia 2016 Chairs and Advisors sha

Towards the A

For Australia to compete in the increasingly competitive global market, we need to become a truly
Agile country. This means continuing to build agility beyond the more traditional Agile domains into
the very core of our largest commercial ventures and government agencies. Of course the heart of an
Agile country, is its Agile community. In Australia we are very lucky to have such a vibrant and active
Agile community. I am looking forward to learning about how Agile is growing in Australia as well as
perspectives from across the globe at this years Agile Australia conference.
Em Campbell-Pretty, Partner, Context Matters / AGILE AUSTRALIA 2016 ADVISOR
I get excited when I hear of really large organisations adopting Agile approaches; to me this proves
that in all organisations whether small, large or very large, public or private sector, we can escape the
tedium of bureaucracy and use our collective energy for more lofty purposes. The problems of the
future cannot be solved by process frameworks and increasingly risk adverse governance, instead we
must release ourselves from these old ways of thinking so we are equipped to tackle the challenges
we will face, that we cant possibly imagine today.
Alexandra Stokes, Founder of Agily / CHAIR OF CHANGING CULTURE
Towards an Agile Country means that the Agile community can truly lead the charge in transforming
Australia into an innovation and technical leader. By living the Agile values and helping others to find
better ways of working together, focussing on delivery, focussing on the customer and keeping up
with change, our size and diversity means we have the potential to become a world leader in many
innovative fields. Our challenge is to move beyond software development teams and start solving
the big problems.
Craig Smith, Agile Coach, Unbound DNA / AGILE AUSTRALIA 2016 ADVISOR

To be Agile simply means to try things, stop doing what doesnt work and do more of what works.
That applies to people, teams, businesses, communities and countries. Im looking forward to learning
what people are doing in taking Agile beyond the realm of software delivery because, as a country,
we need to learn to iterate and adapt to the world around us.
James Ross, Engineering Director, Envato / CHAIR OF SUPPORTIVE LEADERSHIP
We know that the most successful movements begin at the ground level. The widespread and
successful uptake of Agile throughout the software development industry, marks the beginning of
its adoption throughout organisations. As whole and diverse organisations recognise the value of
Agile, the values and concepts become ingrained in a wider group of people. People outside of
organisations, and in more layers of society, become less accepting of inefficiencies, wasted time
and effort, and being bogged down in unnecessary processes and details. An Agile Country is an
evolution, and its already begun. An Agile Country is not the realm of the 1%. It is a place where
the majority have a voice, can thrive and be happy. An Agile Country looks for improvement and
efficiencies across the board. Agile values become integral to getting things done. It is an ideal we
should all strive for. This Conference will get us there.
Sandy Mamoli, Co-Founder, Nomad8 / CO-CHAIR OF ENTERPRISE AGILITY

OUR THANKS TO THE CHAIRS OF THE ELEVEN CONTENT BUCKETS, DEDICATED TEAM OF REVIEWERS AND TO THE ADVISORS
AND TO KIM BALLESTRIN, ENGAGEMENT LEAD, TELSTRA & AGILE AUSTRALIA ADVISOR & CHAIR OF EVERYTHING LEAN / NIG
KELK, HEAD OF ENGINEERING, NEWS CORP & CHAIR OF BUILD THE RIGHT PRODUCT / STEVE LAWRENCE, THE DOCTOR / NI
CONSULTANT, THOUGHTWORKS & CHAIR OF THE DESIGN MINDSET / TED TENCZA, CTO, FINDER.COM.AU & CHAIR OF ENGIN

are their visions on this years conference theme,

Agile Country

In recent years, most organisations have embraced the need for organisational agility in the face
of rapid business change, disruptive technologies and increasingly demanding customers. This
imperative spans the private and public sectors. This years Agile Australia conference will break new
ground in looking at what is required to move Towards the Agile Country.
Keith Dodds, Director, Client Relations, ThoughtWorks / AGILE AUSTRALIA 2016 ADVISOR

Agile means many things to many people. But nearly all practitioners would agree that at its heart
Agile is about providing the ability to receive and rapidly respond to feedback. This is at the heart of
every successful Agile delivery team, at the heart of the companies that build and grow such teams
and should be at the heart of a successful country.
Adam Boas, Principal Engineer, Tiny Robot Army / AGILE AUSTRALIA 2016 ADVISOR

Towards the Agile country is about getting people more curious than they have ever been before.
Its about building a learning mindset and creating a climate where creativity can flourish so Australia
becomes the innovative country.
Chris Chan, Agile Coach & Supervising Consultant, Object Consulting / CO-CHAIR OF ENTERPRISE
AGILITY

This years Agile Australia conference will get us to think differently about how we strive for
excellence for example: Agile does not just let us play the game... it enables us to change it. Agile
does not constrain us by boundaries... it enables us to innovate and create. Agile does not allow us
to be content with the way things are... it enables us to make tomorrow better, and step towards an
Agile country!
Dipesh Pala, Agile Capability Leader - Asia Pacific, IBM / CHAIR OF THE AGILE INDIVIDUAL + TEAMS
Australia used to be a country riding on the sheeps back and then a country that was built on
rich resources. These industries are no longer going to be able sustain Australia and we need to
shift our effort towards an Agile country, where innovation, digitalisation and disruption become
the value-growing capabilities in order to move Australian industry into the future. Agile and Lean
practices represent a cultural shift from inefficient twentieth century practices to a more collective,
accountable approach where we can rise up to meet the accelerated demand that is now the norm.
Michael Rembach, Principal Manager - Application Development, Transport for NSW / CHAIR OF
THE MANIFESTO - REVISITING THE 12 PRINCIPLES & 4 VALUES

S WHO PROVIDE GUIDANCE ON ALL MATTERS RELATING TO THE CONFERENCE. THANKS TO THOSE MENTIONED ABOVE
GEL DALTON, CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER, REA GROUP & ADVISOR / LACHLAN HEASMAN, AGILE COACH & ADVISOR / ANDY
ISH MAHANTY, HEAD OF DEVELOPMENT, AFL MEDIA & CHAIR OF THE TOOLBOX / BEN MELBOURNE, EXPERIENCE DESIGN
NEERING MINDSET / RENEE TROUGHTON, FOUNDER & DIRECTOR, UNBOUND DNA & ADVISOR & CHAIR OF ADVANCED AGILITY

AgileAUSTRALIA16
WORKSHOP DAYS

MELBOURNE: WEDNESDAY 22 JUNE 2016

SYDNEY: THURSDAY 23 JUNE 2016

COLLABORATION
FRAMEWORKS
FOR AGILE TEAMS
with Luke Hohmann
Full Day
(9:00am5:00pm)
The collaborative,
social, and serious
games that have
their roots in the
Agile Community
have blossomed into
multidimensional
frameworks that are
being used by agilists
around the world
to solve awesome
superproblems.
Luke is the Founder and
CEO of Conteneo, Inc.,
whose collaborative
frameworks and
data analytics helps
enterprises to optimise
decision making. The
frameworks span areas
of strategy, innovation,
business agility and
market research.

10 | March 2016 AgileTODAY

THE TOYOTA KATA

EXPERIENCE
with Hkan Forss
Full Day
(9:00am5:00pm)
Create a culture of
continuous learning
and improvement
by discovering the
two main Kata, the
Improvement Kata
and the Coaching
Kata. Deep dive into
the fundamental
behavioural patterns
of the Toyota Kata
methodology.
Hkan is an Agile Coach
at King, the makers of
Candy Crush Saga. He
is also a public speaker
and author.

AGILE TESTING
TECHNIQUES FOR
THE WHOLE TEAM
with Karen Greaves
& Samantha Laing
Half Day
(9:00am12:30pm)
Turn testing into an
ongoing process in this
hands-on workshop
for all Agile team
members.

FACILITATION
SKILLS
with Karen Greaves
& Samantha Laing
Half Day
(1:30pm5:00pm)
Improve your
meetings, workshops,
and training by
mastering the art of
facilitation.
Karen and Samantha are
Agile coaches, trainers
and authors from Cape
Town, South Africa.

DO-IT-YOURSELF
USABILITY
TESTING: THE
WORKSHOP
with Steve Krug
Full Day
(9:00am5:00pm)
Author of usability
bibles Dont Make Me
Think: A Common
Sense Approach to
Web Usability and The
Do-It-Yourself Guide
to Finding and Fixing
Usability Problems.
With Steves vast
expertise drawn from
over 25 years working
with clients including
Apple and IBM
workshop participants
will learn everything you
need to know to make
testing part of your
design process through
hands-on practice and
live demos.

AGILE
AUSTRALIA
WORKSHOPS
WILL ENABLE
YOU TO:
HOW TO LEAD
BY ENABLING
GROWTH
MINDSETS
with Peter Heslin
Full Day
(9:00am5:00pm)
Foster growth
mindsets to support
you and your
team. Through
collaborative exercises,
develop and test a
personalised toolkit
to sustain continuous
improvement of
yourself and others.
Peter is an academic
and author with a PhD
in managers mindset
dynamics.

SIMPLY
BUURTZORG,
PHILOSOPHY IN
PRACTICE WITH
SELF-MANAGING
TEAMS
with Nicole Koster
Half Day
(9:00am12:30pm)
Discover more about
the phenomenon
of Buurtzorg, and
learn how Agile selforganising serves a
higher purpose.
Nicole is an advisor for
Buurtzorg and for Ecare
Services, Co-founder of
Dutch Omaha System
Support foundation, and
a PhD candidate.

INTENTIONAL
AGILITY
with James Brett
Half Day
(1:30pm5:00pm)
Discover not only a
new framework but a
new mindset to enable
greater success and
better experiences.
James Brett is a
Leadership Developer
and Coach.

THE ESSENTIALS
FOR SUCCESS
AS AN AGILE
BUSINESS
ANALYST
with Jody Podbury
Half Day
(9:00am12:30pm)
Learn to value and
move beyond writing
stories, and focus
on thinking beyond
software through the
entire process.
Jody is Head of Agile
Delivery Services
(Sydney) at Elabor8.

Improve the
skills of your
team through a
deep-dive
experience

Learn from
international
experts and
practitioners on
better ways of
working

SELF-SELECTION:
MINIMISING
CHAOS THROUGH
EFFECTIVE TEAM
DESIGN

Discover
practicable
and innovative
approaches to
apply directly in
your workplace

with Sandy Mamoli

& David Mole
Half Day
(1:305:00pm)
Learn how to use selfselection to create
stable, effective teams.
Sandy and David are
New Zealand-based
Agile coaches and coauthors of the recent
book, Creating Great
Teams: How SelfSelection Lets People
Excel.
March 2016 AgileTODAY | 11

Dear Agilist,
Join the Agile Australia Conference Chairs and Advisors to welcome the
Conferences international visitors and speakers; see Lean in action at the Baum
Cycle Factory; enjoy lunch at Terindah Estate on the Bellarine Peninsula and join us
for dinner back in Melbourne.
Sunday 19 June 2016
Register at www.agileaustralia.com.au

12 | March 2016 AgileTODAY

Connect with the most engaged members of the ITSM community at

Service Management 2016 itSMF Australias 19th annual conference.
Service Management 2016 is a content-rich, learning and networking opportunity
that will encourage attendees to get out of their comfort zones and Shake I.T. Up!
Join us for two jam-packed conference days and find new ways to shake up your
IT projects, teams and approaches for greater agility, lasting improvements,
and better business outcomes.

Charles Betz

Vinh Giang

IT Strategist, Architect
and Advisor

2013 South Australian

Entrepreneur of the Year
and Magician

TWO DAYS

50+ SPEAKERS

Gold Sponsors

Dr Amantha Imber
Leading Creativity and
Innovation Psychologist,
Best-Selling Author and
Founder, Inventium

Dave Snowden
Founder and CSO,
Cognitive Edge

A MUST ATTEND GALA AWARDS DINNER

Silver Sponsor

LIGHTNING LETTERS:
Win a copy of Sandy Mamoli & David Moles book
Creating Great Teams: How Self-Selection Lets People Excel

This is an opportunity to connect with your peers by sharing your

insights in lightning form 100 words or less. Well publish your social
media details (if you wish) along with your letter in the next edition of
AgileTODAY and on our blog (agileaustraliablog.com) so you can continue
the conversation off the page.
For this edition, were inviting you to tell us what you think is the key to
being a supportive leader of any team.
The best submission to Lightning Letters will win a copy of Sandy Mamoli and
David Moles book!
Send your lightning letters in 100 words or less to agile@slatteryit.com.au.
Sandy Mamoli and David Mole will lead a post-conference workshop on
Self-selection: Minimising Chaos through Effective Team Designon
Wednesday 22 June 2016 for Agile Australia 2016.

WIN
amoli
M
y
d
San
les
id Mo
v
a
D
&
book!
latest

More info at www.agileaustralia.com.au.

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14 | March 2016 AgileTODAY

 PAULROMMER / DOLLAR PHOTO CLUB

Agile, Melbourne marketplace

BY BEVERLEY HEAD

In the beginning there was REA. It was 1995

Cyan Taeed, co-founder and executive

and the real estate advertising marketplace was

director of Envato, says that although she and

established in Doncaster in Melbournes East.

her husband and co-founder Collis Taeed set

Two years later two soon-to-be iconic online

up shop in Sydney in 2006, they relocated to

marketplaces also sprang out of Melbourne

Melbourne in 2008 in order to access the really

Seek and Carsales.com.au.

diverse and good talent base and particularly

Today the city is overrun with marketplaces;

the high calibre Ruby On Rails community.

Envato, Redbubble, 99Designs and Aussie

Commerce being just some of the best known.
Its even spawned Marketplacer, a software
company that writes for marketplaces.
Ask the founders of these organisations
what makes Melbourne so special for
marketplaces and there is an almost unanimous
response; Ive thought about that and dont
really know whyits chance/coincidence/luck,
they state.
Push them a little harder though and what
they describe is a marketplace and Agile
ecosystem that has acted as a fertile petri dish
for new businesses.

Of course other cities have also

fruited marketplaces Brisbane
bore Wotif, Sydney spawned
Spreets and Freelancer, Adelaide
boasts Bluethumb but there is
an unusually high marketplace
concentration in Melbourne.

CYAN AND COLLIS TAEED

Neither Cyan or Collis had lived in Melbourne

previously, but were lured by access to the
strong Agile and start up talent base.
And there are a lot of early adopters in
Melbourne, probably more than Sydney, she
says, which was useful for the then fledgling
marketplace.

March 2016 AgileTODAY | 15

Today with 1.75 million active buyers,

Envato has delivered $300 million worth of
services through the platform, and has 250 staff
around the world, 180 of whom are located in
Melbourne.
The high concentration of marketplaces in
Melbourne also means; We have been able to
acquire talent who understand the marketplace
REDBUBBLE

model, says Taeed. I dont think you get that

talent in other cities.
And there is a willingness to share.
The Taeeds are now mentoring Morgan
Ranieri, co-founder and CEO of Melbournes
providore marketplace yourgrocer.com.au.
Ranieri says that he is not sure I know why
with technology and start ups when you have
success in one area it snowballs you see Seek
and Carsales.com.au do well and think Ill have

most likely to survive without access to capital.

If a market slowly grows into itself they are
incredibly capital efficient.
Access to Agile skills and a Ruby on Rails
community (which Hosking said has helped
Redbubble scale rapidly) also made Melbourne
attractive, but Hosking notes that Sydney also
has a growing Agile base.

a go. And then sew back into the ecosystem

through investment and mentoring.
Being part of the Melbourne ecosystem has
allowed me to plug into skills the fact that I
can book up a meeting with Envato is definitely
a big leg up, says Ranieri.
That marketplace ecosystem has also
been valuable for Martin Hosking, CEO and
co-founder of Redbubble, though he thinks
Melbournes marketplace concentration is a
product of good luck rather than planning.
Hoskings university years were spent in

Agile is essential in
marketplaces because you
are trying to measure a very
complex system for us its the
buyer, the seller, and fulfiller.
Agile systems are very good
at doing that make a change;
identify the outcome; and,
adjust.

Melbourne and he chose to settle there when

he returned from the US. I know the guys at 99

So for example if we introduce a speedier

Designs and Seek and Envato and why they set

checkout process we want to measure the

up here, but I cant think of any other reason.

total impact and adjust to that where waterfall

Marketplaces are an Australian

assumes an outcome. Also marketplaces go

phenomenon. The reason we got traction

through phases that you cant predict, says

is that these are not very capital intensive

Hosking, saying the Agile approach makes it

marketplaces, which is good for Australia where

easier to respond rapidly to changing situations

we have not always had access to capital.

and to scale.

He thinks the rise of the Melbourne

Eric Willeke, formerly with Rally Software

marketplace is more a Darwinian thing; you

and now director of transformation services

look at the ones that survived and the ones that

at CA Technology following CAs purchase of

remain are marketplaces because they are the

Rally, isnt too surprised at the marketplace

16 | March 2016 AgileTODAY

concentration that has emerged in Melbourne

or its determination to leverage the local Agile
community.
He says there is clear evidence of sectoral
consolidation in the US with tech companies

Melbournes start up landscape.

With each wave (of startups) the people
involved in the earlier wave are reinvesting in the
next wave.
When we are reinvesting money and skills

focused on Silicon Valley, medical technology

we tend to back things in our area of expertise

in Austin, and insurance companies anchored

thats because you cant do due diligence on a

in a handful of US cities. He believes that in any

company you dont understand. You reproduce,

highly competitive market there are benefits to

but we are getting broader.

be wrung from locating close to other similar

entities.
As you close the gap between technology

Adam Schwab, managing director and

founder of Aussie Commerce, has like many of
his peers mused on why Melbourne became a

and business you need technologists that

magnet for marketplaces, deciding finally that

understand how value is delivered to the

it was just luck because start ups are very

market.

democratic.

People who understand the target value of

Nevertheless the luck was such that

the domain are more valuable. You have more

myself and my schoolfriend (Jeremy Same,

capability, faster decision loops and success

Aussie Commerce executive director and

finds success.

founder) went to school in Melbourne and had

Ajay Bhatia, chief product and information

officer of Carsales.com.au, says that his
perception is that although Sydney has a

quite a few businesses when we were at school,

and set up shop as adults, also in Melbourne.
We dont consider ourselves a Melbourne

growing Agile community, the concentration

business though I live in Melbourne, says

of large enterprises has made its adoption

Schwab, who said that the business was today

somewhat slower than in Melbourne. Sydney

very Sydney centric.

does have the image of being less Agile than

Melbourne, he says.
And the public success of REA, of Carsales.
com.au, of Seek its a whole virtuous circle of
success breeds success with the founders as

I dont think it matters where you are based

as long as you are prepared to work hard.
Youve got an idea, run with it, and put
everything into it.
Then, presumably, catch the tram home.

role models, says Bhatia.

That role of the early marketplace founders
cant be overlooked according to Hosking, who
says that both he and Seek founder Paul Bassat,
now with Square Peg Capital, are active in

March 2016 AgileTODAY | 17

BOYLOSO / DOLLAR PHOTO CLUB

Creating
Great
Teams:
How
SelfSelection
Lets
People
Excel

As a consultant and expert in organisational

dynamics, Ive worked with scores of
organisations, and over the course of four
decades, Ive observed hundreds of teams
and team formations. In many of those cases,
the focus was assembling the required mix of
technical skills as if the skills existed apart
from the people who had them.
Many years ago, I worked for a big,
multinational corporation. The company had
technology centers spread over every time
zone. Every possible skill was represented
somewhere in the company. Couldnt we
save money and avoid hiring new people if we
could make efficient use of those resources?
an executive wondered.
Every technical employee filled out a profile
and became an entry in what was called the
Global Skills Inventory (GSI) database. When
the executives approved a new initiative, a
manager created a skills list and cranked
up the database. The manager fed in the
requirements and boom! the GSI spit out

BY ESTHER DERBY

a list of resources deployed for the project

Co-author of Agile

team.

Retrospectives: Making Good

Teams Great and Behind
Closed Doors: Secrets of
Great Management

Its easy to see the faulty reasoning

behind the GSI database. People are not
interchangeable units, and technical skills are
only part of the equation when people need
to work collaboratively.
But what about the traditional way, relying
on management judgment to form teams?
Ive seen selection processes range from very
informal what my friend and fellow Agile
coach Don Gray calls the Five Yous Method
(You, you, you, you, and you. Youre the
team.) to very formal processes with job
analysis, selection criteria, interviews, testing,
and auditions.
Even with the most rigorous process and
in spite of managers good intentions the
likelihood that any group of people actually
gels and becomes a team is low. A few
teams soar, many more slog along, and most
dont show the level of responsibility and
engagement managers hope for.

18 | March 2016 AgileTODAY

Fundamentally, two factors determine

whether a group will forge itself into a team:

Do these people want to work on this

problem?

Do these people want to work with each

other?
Neither a computer program nor a manager
can answer these questions. Only the employees
who will do the work can. And thats the subject
of this lovely and useful book.
Some managers worry that given the option
DAVID MOLE AND SANDY MAMOLI

to self-select, people will act like high-school

kids and choose people they like and work
that appeals to them. Yes, people may choose

How Self-Selection Lets People Excel shows you

those they like to work with on work that seems

step by step what successful team self-selection

interesting. That seems sensible to me.

looks like. It provides enough detail so many

People work best when they have choice over

what they work on and who they work with.
Managers worry that some work wont be
chosen failing to account for employees who
will do less-than-thrilling work because they
understand that its necessary for continued
operations and place high value on that.
Managers want engaged teams who take
responsibility and show initiative. But these
concerns hint at a contradiction: a belief that
employees wont make responsible decisions

more managers can imagine how trying team

self-selection might look and feel in their own
organisation.
Sandy and Davids book is radical in that
it upends the traditional role managers have
in hiring and selecting people for teams. Its
utterly un-radical in that it shows a practical
way forward based on what researchers have
known for years:

People want to do a good job and contribute

to their customers and companies

if left to choose their own teams. Management

Employees work best when they have choice

selection for teams actually works against

They take more responsibility for their own

team responsibility by communicating that

people arent capable of making responsible

decisions than those made by others

choices about work and coworkers. However,

Collaborative work depends on relationships

when teams self-select theyre much more

When you treat people like adults, they act

invested in success. Team self-selection creates

the conditions for team engagement and
responsibility.
How do you go from managerial selection
to self-selection? If your only image is chaos or
choosing up sides for sports it makes sense
that team self-selection looks like a dubious
undertaking. Its not as simple as putting
everyone in a big room and letting them mill
around until they find a group they like. As Sandy
Mamoli and David Mole explain, thought and
preparation are required for successful team
self-selection. The book Creating Great Teams:

that way
Managers need to paint the vision of what
needs to be done, organise the work in a sensible
way, identify constraints, and then let employees
choose their own teams.
This book will help many managers realise
that the opposite of managerial team selection
isnt chaos. Its commitment, creativity, and
engagement, which is what theyve been
searching for all along.
The book is available on Pragmatic Bookshelf
and from Amazon.
March 2016 AgileTODAY | 19

MONDAY 20 - TUESDAY 21 JUNE / MELBOURNE CONVENTION CENTRE

Agile Australia 2016 is about building an environment in which learning is constant,
empathy permeates all that we do, and where we embrace change and embed
innovation in order to secure Australias future prosperity.

KATE DARLING

HKAN FORSS
AGILE COACH, KING

CO-FOUNDER & CTO, PREZI

What can robots teach us about love,

trust and abuse?

How does King, the makers of Candy

Crush Saga, utilise Kata for continuous
learning and improvement?

How is the Co-founder and CTO

of Prezi influencing the future of
programming?

RESEARCH SPECIALIST, MIT MEDIA LAB

PETER HALACSY

LUKE HOHMANN

MARGARETTE PURVIS

How do you tackle Awesome

Superproblems?

How can the embrace of Lean

revolutionise the way we serve our
communities?

FOUNDER, CONTENEO

PRESIDENT & CEO,

FOOD BANK FOR NEW YORK CITY

JOIN US AT AGILE AUSTRALIA 2016

WWW.AGILEAUSTRALIA.COM.AU