AgileTODAY

Perspectives for the enterprise innovator

Volume 10 | AUGUST 2015

Hack Your
Way to
Success

Kingswood College:
Does Agile work
in schools?

Barnardos:
Believing in
Children

Agile
at scale

Lessons from
News Corp, CBA
and Australia Post

WIN
e Pass

bl
A Dou ile
to Ag
e!
Encor

Re-Live Agile Australia 2015!

August 2015 AgileTODAY | 1

AGILEencore15
WEDNESDAY 21 OCTOBER 2015 | RACV CLUB MELBOURNE

JOIN US AT AGILE ENCORE 2015!

Agile Encore brings together some of your favourite speakers with great ideas for managing products,
scaling Agile, motivating teams, and creating a culture of experimentation.
Following the sold-out Agile Australia 2015 Conference which saw 1100 technology professionals gather in
Sydney over two exciting days of learning, sharing, and networking, Agile Encore delivers the highlights of
this event in one punchy afternoon!

BEN
GRACEWOOD
VP of
Engineering,
Vend

ALEXANDRA
STOKES
Founder,
Agily

DAVID
MOLE
Agile
Coach,
Nomad8

SHERIF
MANSOUR
Principal
Product
Manager,
Atlassian

CRAIG
SMITH
Agile
Coach,
Unbound
DNA

SESSIONS INCLUDE: What if there were no rules? Ben Gracewood Vend Building the right thing
lessons learnt in Agile product management Sherif Mansour Atlassian Scaling Agile to the enterprise
Frameworks and the debate! Alexandra Stokes Agily Drive: How we used Daniel Pinks work to create a
happier, more motivated workplace David Mole Nomad8 It all starts with an idea Kicking off initiatives
for success Craig Smith Unbound DNA
Wednesday 21 October 2015
12:00pm 5:30pm

RACV Club
501 Bourke Street, Melbourne

$250+GST
Discounts apply for groups of 5 or more

CATCH UP ON SESSIONS YOUR COLLEAGUES RAVED ABOUT!

VISIT WWW.AGILEAUSTRALIA.COM.AU FOR FURTHER INFORMATION.

Contents 03 Letter from the Editor

04 Hacking Away To Shape Organisational
Culture Brett Wakeman
06 CommBank, Australia Post,and NewsCorp
embark on Enterprise Agility Beverley Head
09 Lightning Letters! Win a Double Pass to
Agile Encore

10 Highlights from Agile Australia 2015

12

Agile Australia Survey Results

14 Top Tweets from Agile Australia 2015

16

Kingswood College Adopts Agile

18

Barnados: Being a Non-Profit means We

Have to be Lean

Letter
from the
Editor
Welcome to AgileTODAY the Community
issue!
We are still coming down from the high that
was Agile Australia 2015 Conference held
this past June in Sydney what a vibe!

Another big theme emerging from Agile

Australia 2015 was around scaling Agile in

When we went through the comments and

an enterprise setting, with many different

feedback surveys from the conference,

strategies and perspectives being shared.

we were surprised and delighted by

Read our exclusive feature on scaling

how many of you are using Agile to

Agile in three of Australias biggest

serve your communities whether it be

organisations News Corp, Commonwealth

in schools, for charity, or for improving

Bank, and Australia Post on page 6.

morale within your organisation.

You can also check out the results from

You inspired us to do this community

this years State of Agile survey on page 12,

edition of AgileTODAY, featuring your

highlights from the national Agile conference

stories about improving the lives of others

on page 10, and go into the draw to win

via Agile methods! Check out BankWests

a double-pass to Agile Encore, held on

hackathon for wildlife group NativeARC;

Wednesday 21 October 2015 in Melbourne!

and Carsales use of hack days to transform

their organisational culture on page 4.

Best wishes,

See how child welfare non-profit

Zhien-U Bakarich

Barnardos adopted Agile to improve

Editor

outcomes for kids (page 16).

Agile approaches are even making

PS: We welcome your feedback and

their way into schools, with Kingswood

contributions to the AgileTODAY magazine.

College implementing Agile in classrooms.

Please send us comments and article

Read about their journey on page 17.

ideas to editor@agiletoday.com.au

Hacking Away To Shape

Organisational Culture

What do you get when you give 100+

techies the freedom to hack away for
two days and work on whatever they like?
Brett Wakeman shares the results.

Brett Wakeman is the Iteration Manager within

the Membership Tribe at carsales.com.au

A few years ago, the leadership

The idea was

simple: No rules,
no direction,
just freedom.

4 | August 2015 AgileTODAY

So our first Hackathon was

team at Carsales were surprised

born, to offer the development

to discover that developers in

team an opportunity to innovate.

the Product & Technology team

felt that Carsales was not an

The idea was simple: No rules,

no direction, just freedom.

innovative company. They were

The result was nothing short

taken aback, because Carsales

of amazing. Great ideas can come

had a long and proud history

from anyone and, given the right

of delivering innovative and

environment and opportunity;

industry-leading products and

everyone can bring their ideas to

services.

fruition. A pleasantly surprising

But the original ideas for these

fact is that over 50% of Hackathon

were coming from our leadership

projects to date have actually been

team, not the development team.

released to production.

Rikki Lee Vrankovich Digital Experience Manager, BankWest

We run three Hack Day events each year and they have
grown larger and delivered better outcomes with each
event, with more colleagues joining from beyond our
IT departments.
Being an iconic institution with a risk-averse culture we
really challenge ourselves to extend our scope a little
wider, ensuring that we continue to deliver a unique event
that inspires our colleagues. The most important and
powerful feedback received is our colleagues love the
opportunity to support the community they live and work
in. This inspired us to try our first Community Hack event,
where we partnered with Native ARC, a not-for-profit

This is a statistic we are very

Rikki Lee

BankWests Community
Hack for Native ARC

organisation which looks after Australian wildlife. Native

ARC had no technical capability, so we worked over two
days to build them a management system and database
which allows them to record and report the animals that
they care for.
It gives me immense pleasure to organise the Bankwest
Hack Day, I love being able to give our colleagues the
opportunity to work on diverse ideas that inspire them to
look differently at their day-to-day tasks and to challenge
them to think outside the box to make things easier and
simpler for our customers.e to help colleagues; share
information openly and proactively

Service team during our second

go-to-market strategies and

proud of, said Carsales CIO,

Hackathon, every member of

how to pitch their idea to bring

Ajay Bhatia, because it shows

the Product & Technology team

investors on board. The real key

everyone at Carsales that theyre

now spends two hours every few

to success was branching out

empowered to bring their ideas

months listening to customer

and collaborating effectively with

to life and encourages them to

support calls. This has led to the

people from across the business.

continue innovating day-to-day

implementation of a number of

during the Hackathon off-season.

initiatives that have significantly

down of barriers across our

The benefits to us as a business

improved the customer

different departments and gave

have been beyond what we had

experience for the millions of

everyone an opportunity to get to

imagined.

visitors to Carsales network of

know people that they may have

sites.

otherwise not met, with carsales

The buzz generated during a

short two-day period, continues
well beyond the actual event.
One of our core values

We extended the invitation to

participate beyond the customer
service team and experimented

Jumpstart helped in breaking

now having close to 400 people

in our head office.
At Carsales, our initial

at Carsales revolves around

with a number of different

objective was to address the

innovation and our hackathons

approaches to involve the entire

perceived lack of innovation

have been instrumental in

business. The turning point was

within our development team, but

bringing innovation to life. But

our Jumpstart event, where

what we didnt expect was the

the best part is not what happens

teams had to take a start-up

cultural innovation it created in

every quarter during the few days

approach to executing their

the process.

of the actual Hackathon, but the

ideas.

value delivered post each event

The major difference between

Putting the customer first, a

renewed sense of empowerment

and the positive cumulative flow-

Jumpstart and our other

now felt by everyone to

on effect.

Hackathons was that it wasnt

bring their ideas to life and

only about the code. Teams

greater collaboration between

has been a renewed focus on

had to consider elements such

departments, are now all key

our customers. Following the

as marketing, commercialisation

aspects of our culture.

involvement of our Customer

and revenue opportunities,

One of these flow-on effects

August 2015 AgileTODAY | 5

Agile at scale: Lessons from

the frontline at News Corp,
CBA and Australia Post
Leveraging the benefits of Agile requires a corporate rethink, writes Beverley Head
Its hard to imagine a more

Pete Steel, then

locator app, Gough said he

digitally disrupted trifecta of

Commonwealth Banks retail CIO,

paused to analyse the value that

Australian businesses than News

who has since taken on the banks

had been delivered to consumers

Corp, Commonwealth Bank

lead digital role, explained at Agile

and the enterprise at large.

and Australia Post. All have

Australia 15 that the bank now

It delivered, he says, an aha!

seen internet enabled start-ups

had 1,000 people working on 144

moment when he realised that to

encroach on their territory, and

Agile projects, noting that the

fully leverage the value of Agile,

all are turning to Agile to provide

approach had been a massive

Post had to step back from just

a means to respond rapidly and

success but was not without

doing Agile to instead creating

effectively.

speedbumps and stormy waters.

a culture in which Agile could

At Agile Australia 2015,

It took management foresight,

flourish across the enterprise.

executives from each of these

he said, to accept that Agile

organisations participated in a

mandated a change in the

culture was also increasingly

panel session helmed by Agile

way you work, the rhythm, the

essential, he acknowledged, in

coach Lachlan Heasman to

disempowerment of senior

terms of being able to attract and

explore the challenges associated

leaders who think they know best

retain skills.

with bringing Agile to the

and instead making the decisions

enterprise.

where they are made best, on the

he said, also meant taking a fresh

floor in the scrum.

look at funding models, moving

Not so long ago, Agile

practitioners were considered

While CBAs Agile engagement

Establishing an Agile-friendly

Getting the right culture,

to a continuous rather than

enterprise Australias fringe

began in technology and

staccato budgeting approach;

dwellers; techno-geeks who

particularly in customer-facing

securing organisational support

would slyly cover office partitions

innovation, he said that some

for experimental methodologies;

with Post-It notes as they learned

senior bank executives had now

and focussing on creating value

the lingo of the scrum.

begun to adopt Agile practices to

for the enterprise rather than just

Today Agile is out and

nut out bank strategy objectives.

getting product out the door.

proud, and its capabilities are

Its really interesting to see that

rapidly percolating beyond the

sort of engagement refreshing

a significant Agile capability.

IT department as enterprises

to see it creeping out beyond

Having originally had 40 to 50

grapple with digital disruption

software development, he said.

Agile specialists working in the

and the need to respond rapidly

to morphing market conditions.
Leveraging the full impact

It also signals the impact Agile

can have on corporate culture.
And culture is crucial

Like CBA, Post has developed

technology group, Gough said

that Post now had around 250
working in 15 Agile teams across

of the Agile approach, however,

according to Australia Posts

requires a commitment to

Cameron Gough, general manager

update corporate cultures, flatten

of the organisations digital

to an Agile enterprise culture,

hierarchies, rethink budgets and

delivery centre.

Post has deployed the SAFe

KPIs, and blow up a few sacred

cows along the way.

6 | August 2015 AgileTODAY

After using Agile techniques

to rapidly roll out a post office

three tribes.
To help with the transition

framework which Gough said

gave a degree of structure to the

process that was helpful in that;

in the enterprise then avoid the

of acquiring funding is still a bit

Its a sort of mediation layer into

fundamentalists.

of the tail wagging a dog. But the

the organisation. But it equally

Bowen said News Corp

bigger challenge for us has been

gives us a lot of space for the

had focused on; the spirit of

stakeholder management in the

teams to evolve.

the principles, on the learning

wider organisation.

Alisa Bowen, group director of

outcomes, breaking down large

She said that it was important

digital product and development

monolithic projects. We talk

that the broader enterprise

at News Corp said that the

about milestones and phases

appreciated and got comfortable

company was; very very early

rather than sprints, because as

with the ambiguity that can

into the stage of making the

soon as you start talking about

accompany Agile projects and

entire organisation Agile, and

that people think its just for the

instead of being focused on the

all organisations would say they

technologists.

issue of what was being delivered

aspire to be more nimble and

She added that part of the

by when, to turn the discussion

able to learn more quickly. But

rationale for implementing Agile

to the business outcome that was

she acknowledged that was

processes was to attempt to

being sought.

incredibly hard to do.

break through the bureaucracy

One of the approaches she

As she noted; Once everyone

and layers in a large organisation

is focussed on the outcome and

said had proved valuable was

such as News Corp, delivering

the steps that might get us there

to strip away some of Agiles

teams with more flexibility,

it changes the conversation.

specialist language and replace it

autonomy and empowerment to

with enterprise-friendly terms.

get closer to the customer.

The first piece of advice I

got was if you want this to work

Bowen said that there were still

funding challenges. The process

Lachlan Heasman, Alisa Bowen, Pete

Steel, and Cameron Gough speaking
at Agile Australia 2015, June Sydney.

August 2015 AgileTODAY | 7

are not here to build

Yousoftware.
You are here
to change the world.
Linda Rising
Agile Australia 2015

Win a double pass to

Agile Encore 2015

AgileTODAY is giving one lucky reader a double pass to Agile Encore 2015 Wed 21
October 2015, Melbourne!
For your chance to win, get your thinking caps on and send us your most creative caption
for this photo of Agile Australia 2015 speaker David Mole and Scrum Master Jono Elkin.

The winner will be announced on the Agile
Australia blog (agileaustraliablog.com)
To enter:
1. G
 et creative with a colourful, comic
caption for the photo
2. Email to conference@agileaustralia.com.au
with CAPTION in the subject line
3. Include your Name, Job Title, Company,
Email, and Phone Number
4. T
 ell us who the lucky
person is that you
will be taking to
the event

WINle

Competition closes 23 September.

Winner announced 30 September.

b
a dou to
pass
Agile
re
Enco

Featured lightning letters

Thank you to everyone who put through lightning letters from our last edition, which was
around maximising work. Here are a couple of the featured letters:
I maximise work not done by asking:
If it is really required before i start. Work items often become out of date, but are not updated, so
check before you commit any effort to it. A quick question can save you days of unnecessary work.
The question why? If the owner of the task cannot justify why they want it, then why am i spending
time on it? Leanne Howard, Agile Practices Consultant
We (Team) play design marathons with our UX in the initiation phase to give the complete team an
in-depth understanding of the features and stories we are going to work. Each of us do a presentation
of our wireframe or sketch to explain what was the thought behind the drawing and how we are
addressing the value requirement. On top of this, the activity also puts the team into a commanding
position to understand the Vision and objectives of the product or service. This understanding
empowers the team to take valuable decisions and come out with creative alternatives during the
sprints (if required). We are sure this is valuable insight clearly puts the age old debate to rest if
designers lead the sprint plan or the developers. It also allows us a team to be more productive in
the starting sprints of a release. Sumit Chowdhury, Lead BA for Project MCC, Westpac
August 2015 AgileTODAY | 9

AgileAustralia15

TITLE Sponsor

PLATINUM Sponsor

Gold Sponsors

Silver Sponsors

other

August 2015 AgileTODAY | 11

Highlights from
AgileAustralia15ho spread

Two-thirds say it was

their first time
66% of State of Agile survey respondents had never been to an Agile
Australia conference before. Here is what you shared with us.

Familiarity to Agile

Similar to last years statistics, culture has

emerged as the biggest challenge:

You

Organisation

9.44%

20%

Fairly familiar with Agile

25.84%

32.81%

Very familiar with Agile

46.74%

32.58%

17.54%

14.38%

New to Agile

Agile expert

From 445 survey responses, as many as

46.74% respondents were very familiar with
Agile followed by 25.84% who were fairly
familiar with Agile. These results
were echoed by the organisations
familiarity to Agile as shown in the table
above. Interestingly, as many as 20%
of respondents organisations are new
to Agile.

Impact of Agile
When respondents were asked What
aspect of Agile has had the most impact
on the way you work? 28% of the answers
mentioned collaboration/teamwork. This
was followed by rituals like scrums, standups, retros, sprints at 18%. Other aspects of
Agile that popped up to note were ease/
efficiency, iteration/flexibility, speed of
delivery and transparency/visibility.
12 | August 2015 AgileTODAY

Culture the mindset that this is not how

we have always done it so why are we
doing it now. If a process is not broken
why fix it
General culture shift hasnt been achieved
and in some cases the change has been
rejected
This was followed closely by issues with
management, who are not embracing the
process and working at the same pace as
the rest of the team:
Old-school management thinking, habits,
behaviours
Management, long standing practises and
operations bogged down in the current
way of working, ineffective change agents,
lack of techniques
Resistance to change was highlighted
by 12% of respondents, which can be
attributed to a lack of understanding, fear
of the unknown, and refusal to accept or
having the will to change:
The uncertainty. Resistance to investing
fully in agile and making it work. Larger,
traditional organisational processes which
are hard to change
Fear of the unknown and a reason why

More than 50% of attendees

who answered the survey
work in large organisations
NA

Less than
50 employees
50 - 200
employees

1,000+
employees

Lack of Funding being made available

comprised 7% of responses.
The funding model does not lend itself
to the achievement of the advantages
that can be gained by working in an agile
environment
The current policy and process they fund
for projects. The current project framework
execution for projects limits funding for
agile right now large projects

200 1,000 employees

LinkedIn and Facebook are hands down the

peoples choice of social media platform
100%
80%

76.06%
66.08%

60%
40%
20%
0%

32.17%
23.44%

Facebook LinkedIn Instagram

16.21%

Twitter

Google+

8.23%
NA

2.49%
Other
(please
specify)

Thank you to all those who participated in the State of Agile 2015 survey
handed out at the conference!

Top Tweets from

John Carroll @john_bouy
Thanks to everyone for making the #agileaus conference
happen! Highlights had to be @ldavidmarquet and @
RisingLinda

Steve Si @Stephensi
Inspirational Lisa Frazier @CommBank embracing the
culture of experimentation and welcoming failure as part
of learning #agileaus

Tony Palmer @tony_a_palmer

Lots of great sessions at #agileaus, esp. @berndschiffer
@anders_ivarsson @RisingLinda @ldavidmarquet @
robpyne well done to the organisers

Rikki-Lee @rlvrankovich
Exciting & encouraging to hear Hack Day cultures being
mentioned in so many talks at #agileaus #doingitright @
m1k3_br33z3 @anders_ivarsson
Anthony Boobier @antboobier
A bad manager is worse than a dysfunctional leadership
team #agileaus
Herry Wiputra @hwiputra
Leadership is all about supporting the team. It is a
behaviour, not a role. #agileaus
Erwin van der Koogh @evanderkoogh
I love how the Spotify people always cringe when
someone mentions the Spotify Model.It was a snapshot,
never meant to be a model #agileaus

Em Campbell-Prettys notes during Linda Risings

workshop gained 13 ReTweets and was favorited 21 times
paulangov @paulangov
Love hearing from ppl who have solid things theyre
going to follow up in their orgs after coming to our
#agileaus talk. cc @MrPommyGit
Sue Hogg @planetsuzie
Big thanks 2 all #agileaus speakers especially @
ldavidmarquet @RisingLinda @anders_ivarsson @
jamesshore @evanderkoogh @berndschiffer #genius

Mike breeze @m1k3_br33z3

Big thanks to #agileaus organisers! @snowwhere and I
had a great time speaking, listening and watching over
the past few days. Awesome!
Marty Andrews @martinjandrews
First time in years that I feel like I missed out by not being
at #AgileAus. Seems to have been reinvigorated nicely.
This tweet received 84 ReTweets and was favorited
47 times! Bernd Schiffer @berndschiffer
Doh! #agilefluency #agileaus #userstories /by @
jamesshore

Dominik Katz @dominikkatz

Had the weirdest dream last night of a proud redbooted tiger. Cat shoe, sic! Thanks @berndschiffer @
Erdbeervogel, great talk #agileaus
Jono Elkin @JonoElkin
Yeeeeeah #agileaus would have to be one of the best
conferences Ive ever been to. Shattered now though!
Greg Willis @gwillis
Very impressed with the quality of speakers, attendees
and thinking at #agileaus last 2 days. see you next year!
@slatteryit
Paris Cowan @parisbcowan
#AgileAus conference hands out drinks before last
session starts. #Genius.

James Shore @jamesshore

A great end to a great conference. Thanks #agileaus!
Now on to Melbourne for a reprise of my #agilefluency
coaching workshop.

Kim B @kb2bkb
Reminding us that not all learning is incremental @
adamboas @nxdnz #agileaus

Helen Kelly @hels_kel

Thanks @slatteryit and #agileaus for the prizes, excellent
timing for all onboard!

14 | August 2015 AgileTODAY

Service Management 2015

itSMF Australias 18th Annual National Conference

BUILDING CUSTOMER VALUE

SOFITEL SYDNEY WENTWORTH, AUSTRALIA | THURSDAY 20 - FRIDAY 21 AUGUST 2015

Transform the way you work at

Service Management 2015!

DR JASON FOX
Bestselling author and
motivation strategy expert

NICOLE FORSGREN PHD

Lead investigator of the
State of DevOps study

Explore how to apply innovation

to maximise business value at the
pre-conference workshop day
on August 19!

BERNARD SALT
Demographer and futurist

GLENN KING
CEO, Service NSW

ANDRE SNOXALL
CIO, NSW Health

MIKE CANNON-BROOKES
Co-founder and co-CEO
Atlassian

SANDY MAMOLI
Agile extraordinaire,
Nomad8

AGILETODAY
SUBSCRIBERS
USE SPECIAL CODE

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August 2015 AgileTODAY | 15

Kingswood College

adopts Agile
Kingswood College
Location: Box Hill, Melbourne
Size: Approx. 600 students
& 100 Teaching Staff
Type: Independent, Co-Ed
Kindergarten Year 12

As a global community we must think differently

about education and the future, because the
future our children face is fundamentally different
from that of any previous generation. Kingswood
College is using research into how humans best
live, learn and flourish to create contemporary,
future-focused learning experiences and programs
for our students.
The education industry is a hotly contested
marketplace. There are calls for education to
combat obesity, mental health, financial literacy,
the methamphetamine crisis and radicalisation to
name a few alongside a focus on values education
and the traditional reading, writing and arithmetic.
This pressure does not often make for schools
characterised by their energy and flexibility. Quite
the opposite. Amidst the education debate one
thing has emerged to which educators cling
curriculum. The collection of concepts about what

Schools

Manifesto for Agile Software Development

curriculum

Engaging
curriculum
Student
co-creation

We are uncovering better ways of developing

software by doing it and helping others do it.
Through this work we have come to value:

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan

That is, while there is value in the items on

the right, we value the items on the left more.

16 | August 2015 AgileTODAY

contract
mindset
Factory
curriculum

to plan school Curriculum

students need to know and be able do by the end

introduce new ideas, which may be tabled for future

of their schooling. Its so perpetually added to that

strategy meetings. The scrum was complemented

it is known as the crowded curriculum. It is so vast

by a Kanban board designed to reflect the teams

that no school can cover it in the detail they know it

progress and each persons responsibility.

deserves; it contains ideas of depths that cannot be

sounded in the time available to teachers; and despite
being continually expanded, is curated by educators
and their managers who reluctantly, if ever, prune old
concepts.

The intention was to restructure the way we talk

about curriculum beyond the traditional subject/
faculty construct, talking about the why of learning
and teaching at Kingswood College, not just what and
how. Tools like display boards enables us to visualise

The best educators know this has to change. Students

the process from idea to execution and evaluation and

must be viewed first and foremost as individuals; the

make that information available to our colleagues. We

things they need to know as fluid and evolving, and

can easily see obstacles and gaps. We can identify

the school seen as a community of learners.

areas that need greater attention. Perhaps more

When we attended Agile Australia 2015 we were

surprised to see presenters starting with similar
messages and familiar slides that we use in
education that encourage educators to stop teaching
students using the factory model and truly embrace

importantly, we can foster a climate of trust where

our work is promoted and scrutinised beyond the
scope of one group of people in one meeting room by
encouraging the transparency and openness that agile
thinking offers.

individualised learning and a curriculum that prepares

We are not there yet; but we are committed to

students for our rapidly changing reality.

continuing to adapt agile thinking to our setting

The Agile Manifesto and the mindset that

accompanies it has a significant parallel to the journey
that we are exploring. This year we have dared to
ask: As a school that wants to be world class, what
could we learn from world class organisations in
other fields that could help us drive curriculum
improvement, enshrine staff collaboration time, and
make our school more fast-paced and flexible?
One of the concerns we had regarding the structure
and flow of meetings was that operational details

and explore these ideas. At Kingswood College,

the vision of an agile curriculum, and agile school
is one that responds rapidly to continual change;
that is lightweight without being lite; that is flexible,
manageable and adaptive without being reactive.
It is one of continual innovation characterised by
the enthusiasm of practitioners at the peak of their
profession.
Liam King, Deputy Principal (Learning and Teaching)
Grant Exon, Pedagogical Leader (Collaboration)

were obstructing valuable projects. We combatted this

by splitting our meeting into a 60 minute strategic
discussion of ideas, initiatives and pedagogy that
would inform and drive our educational agenda,
and our own version of scrum. That is, a 20 minute
standing meeting that would allow people to provide
updates on particular initiatives and programs and

We would love to hear from others in the community

who are interested in continuing this conversation
in relation to the implementation of Agile in an
educational setting.
Please email us at editor@agiletoday.com.au

August 2015 AgileTODAY | 17

Barnardos

Being a non-profit means we have to be lean

Ben Liquete, Tech Lead & Sharmili Someshwar, IT Dev Manager, Barnardos
Barnardos Australia has a long

throughput, like organising tasks

standing focus of putting the child

and workflow, breaking big stories

pursue is Thank You notes for

first, and saw a need for a whole-

into granular stories, defining

peer recognition, acknowledging

of-life child welfare / child services

processes and check-lists to

that Feelings Matter, recognising

management system.

ensure similar understanding

via words and appreciation rather

surrounding completed tasks, what

than via monetary value.

Barnardos Australia created

One of the simpler things we

MyStory from the ground up a

to expect when a story is moved

cloud-based SaaS, designed by

between stages, velocity and

of our team to Agile Australia 2015

practitioners for practitioners.

work-rate charts and many more.

weve queued a few initiatives. We

It features case planning tools

with guided practice notes to
give workers: shared information;
enable best decisions; and
preserves life story information.
Its a digital memory box for the
child/young person in foster
care housed in one central
location; because greater detail
and accurate information results
in better informed placement
decisions for individuals.
We dont have the luxury of
being a non-agile heavy weight.
The financial pressure alone
brought on the project.
When the MyStory project
began, the focus was on
connecting users with working
software they could use straight
away. We worked to establish

What Worked
Definition of Done
Smaller Stories collected
under an Epic
Story Champions
Upcoming Functionality (Future
Requests)
Internal Communication
Short focussed Stand-Up

After having sent four members

went through a Key Points exercise

rating ourselves against some of
the common key points raised in
many of the Agile Australia talks.
We rated it high if we felt it was
something we valued and pursued,
low if were bad at it or needed
to add focus to it. Based on the
outcome weve created a number
of follow up activities to get us to

What didnt work /

where we want to be for those Key

isnt working

Points.

Tracking points per developer

Retro without action items
Too many rules and overbaked
processes
Checklists as a process
Skipping Retro on non-

Key Points
Adaptability
Dont Fear Failure
Simplicity
Communication Internal

deliverable sprints

Communication External

Our whole team feels the need

Trust within the Team

Innovation

collaboration with multiple

to take care of the project. As

Freedom to Create

business units, industry experts,

an example, our Development

Highly Valued Team of Highly

and academics to understand

Manager plays Product Owner and

requirements rather than follow

attends the Daily Stand Up. They

general sector processes, and we

see the sprint progress as well as

kept the end-user in the loop with

any hiccups the team is struggling

focus groups to test the ideas and

with. They see where bugs are

together for long enough now

gather more.

interfering with development flow,

that we are creating an identity

so they can choose to play the

for MyStory IT Dev team. Yes, we

Scrum tools: online backlogs and

bug fix or not. This has helped

have different opinions in some

Scrum boards; User Stories; and

management to re-prioritise

areas like Simplicity, Leadership,

we automated our whole delivery

stories.

Freedom to create etc, but we

We started with a number of

infrastructure to the cloud: build,

We are co-located with the

Valued Individuals
A Team of Leaders
As maturity goes, weve been

believe these ideas, as well as

test, deploy, backup; the whole

PDC our main Customer so

understanding our responsibility

shebang.

communication, visibility and

and accepting it, is our priority

transparency and organisation have

as a team and were committed

all benefited from thinking agile.

to that.

We have tried many different

strategies to improve team

18 | August 2015 AgileTODAY

JOIN US FOR THE SEVENTH TECH23 EVENT WHERE CONNECTED

PEOPLE, CLEVER IDEAS AND INNOVATIVE COMPANIES COLLIDE!

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Tech23 2015 is for you if you are:

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DATE Tuesday 17 November 2015

VENUE The Auditorium, 37 Reservoir St, Surry Hills
TIME
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followed by networking and awards ceremony

FIRST SPEAKERS ANNOUNCED

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Sponsored by

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