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

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EXTERNAL – Paladins, Demons & The Illuminati – Changing culture at the ATO. Tyler Gale 2
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.
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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
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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.
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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
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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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EXTERNAL – Paladins, Demons & The Illuminati – Changing culture at the ATO. Tyler Gale 11
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!
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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”.
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People make the best decisions for better
processes, tools, etc.
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Retrospect, retrospect, retrospect and retrospect.

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The Paladin – Agile holy warrior
The paladin (this is who you
invest your time in)
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Is enthusiastic and motivated by
the change agenda.
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An “infection point” that changes
those around them (buffs).
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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?
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Who responds to requests for
assistance?
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Who interacts with the games
on whiteboards?
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Who is demonstrating
innovation or skilling those up
around them?

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The Demon
Refuses to change, and is
toxic to others:
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Negative impact on those
around them.
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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
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Demons usually make
themselves known.
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Demons actively disrupt
attempts to make change.
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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!
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Very high level leadership. We can anticipate
organisational change and feed that into our plans.
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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.
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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!

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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
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Illuminati Triangle. Retrieve 21/10/2018 from
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Illuminati_triangle_eye.png
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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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