Tyler Gale presents on transforming the culture at the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) to be more agile. He was tasked with changing the culture across 24 teams to better align with agile principles. His approach involved identifying "Paladins" who championed the change, managing "Demons" who resisted it, and creating a secret "Illuminati" group to drive initiatives across teams. The results included improved metrics, more innovation, lower turnover, and other benefits of the cultural shift to agile. Gale shares lessons learned, including coaching leadership and focusing on success over delivery.

1. Paladins, Demons & the Illuminati
Changing culture at the ATO
Presented by Tyler Gale
Australian Taxation Office
CLASSIFICATION
EXTERNAL

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Who am I
Tyler Gale
Agile coach @ Australian Taxation Office
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Agile coach for the branch in ATO responsible for most of the client
facing applications (ATO mobile app, ato.gov.au, ATO Online, etc.)
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We have 24 agile teams predominantly in Brisbane, but with some in
Canberra and Melbourne.
●
Got into coaching by accident. Became a Scrum master without a
team, applied the principles to many teams!

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What we are going to talk about
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My overwhelming task
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Paladins, Demons & the Illuminati
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The results!
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Things I wish I had known
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Q and Eh!

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The specific takeaways you’ll get
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Why culture can should not be ignored in your
transformation.
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Some practical tips on how to transform
incumbent bad culture at scale
●
Some lessons I learnt the hard way.

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A Kebab shop changed my life...
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Recognition for my ability to
transform an area into
“green-fields” agile.
●
Experimental position as an
ATO-internal Agile coach full-
time.

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The situation
One
Branch
Another
branch
New ultra mega
mega branch

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The mega branch issues
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Formed as scrum, but culture rooted in Waterfall.
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Command and control hierarchy, with limited
autonomy for teams.
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No product owners (lolwut)
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Not even remotely full stack
●
Overburdened and overworked
New ultra mega
mega branch

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The immediate mission:
Fix the culture (fix the
environment, not the
people).
Create (and maintain)
the OMGWTFBBQ
most-agilest area ever!

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Waterfall is fixed scope, with dynamic
resourcing and time.
Agile is fixed resources and time, with
dynamic scope.

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Outcomes of that model
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No autonomy
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No trust and transparency
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No collaboration, learning or innovation
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No connection to reasoning and value
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No celebration
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No inspection and adaption

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Outcomes of Agile
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No Autonomy
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No Trust and transparency
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No Collaboration, learning or innovation
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No Connection to reasoning and value
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No Celebration
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No Inspection and adaption

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So how did we change?
(how does one change 300?)

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What to do yourself...
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Exemplify the behaviour you expect in others.
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Work with others to make it clear what “good”
looks like so people can reach for it. Don’t
assume they know!
●
Never appear as a manager or an auditor! You
work for the people!

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Some low hanging fruit for changing the
environment
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Create spaces that forces behavioural usage.
Whiteboards are cheap ways of collaborating!
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Destroy formality with memes (the dankest possible)
and remove the power from “incidents”.
●
People make the best decisions for better
processes, tools, etc.
●
Retrospect, retrospect, retrospect and retrospect.

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The Paladin – Agile holy warrior
The paladin (this is who you
invest your time in)
●
Is enthusiastic and motivated by
the change agenda.
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An “infection point” that changes
those around them (buffs).
●
Less likely to “drop” new skills,
behaviours and culture in the
face of resistance

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How to find paladins
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Hold “open” workshops. Who
attends, and how often?
●
Who responds to requests for
assistance?
●
Who interacts with the games
on whiteboards?
●
Who is demonstrating
innovation or skilling those up
around them?

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The Demon
Refuses to change, and is
toxic to others:
●
Negative impact on those
around them.
●
Believes they can disable the
cultural transformation.
Do not spend time trying to
change them, but protect others
from their influence!

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How to detect a demon
●
Demons usually make
themselves known.
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Demons actively disrupt
attempts to make change.
●
Pay special attention to
leadership and roles that
disappear in Agile.

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The Illuminati – The shadowy change group
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Eyes and ears of people and
leadership.
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Group takes action across the
space (examples incoming).
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Rank and role left at the door,
and total honesty between each
other.
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Membership is secretive.

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Some of our Illuminati membership
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Finance officers. Useful for change that requires
money!
●
Very high level leadership. We can anticipate
organisational change and feed that into our plans.
●
Normal team members. Can see the bad/good
things we normally couldn’t!

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The outcomes...

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●
Our internal metrics & census data show successive
improvements with each run.
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Teams are consistently reserving capacity for
learning, innovation and technical debt refactoring.
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Our staff turnover rates are dramatically lower.
People wanting to work with us has increased too!
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Most of our demons are gone.
●
We advise internal and external areas on how to
accomplish transformations in their space.

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Did we accomplish the mission?
Dramatically better, but
this will always be a work
in-progress.
Yeah, but we still want
it to be better and
better.

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I wish I had known earlier...
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Coach leadership immediately!
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Look after yourself! Do not become cynical and
be patient.
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Define to yourself what success is, and always
take the time to notice it. This isn’t delivery!

26. Thanks for listening!
Any questions?
Tyler Gale
tyler.gale@ato.gov.au
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tyler-gale-359ab16b/

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References
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Deumus. Retrieved 21/20/2018 from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Deumus.png
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Segway in the office. Retrieved 21/10/2018 from
http://bulknews.typepad.com/life/2005/11/segway_in_the_o.html
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Colour by numbers. Retrieved 21/10/2018 from
https://www.amazon.com/Colour-Numbers-Culture-Club/dp/B000000WHH
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Uther by Vir Hiyuga. Retrieved 21/10/2018 from https://weheartit.com/entry/237176364
●
Illuminati Triangle. Retrieve 21/10/2018 from
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Illuminati_triangle_eye.png
●
Kebab cat. Retrieved 21/10/2018 from https://i.chzbgr.com/full/4809741056/h7F929344/
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The Sitiation. Retrieved 21/10/2018 from
https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/images/the-situation-tax-stuff-152
2948201.jpg?resize=480
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