AusPost, NAB combine on Agile project

Agile practitioners at the National Australia Bank and Australia Post have invited peers at other large Australian organisations to join a group that aims to harmonise best practices for agile software development in large enterprise.

Cameron Gough, general manager of Australia Post’s digital delivery centre and Dylan Verheijden, capability manager at NAB"s digital channel online services unit have been meeting informally for some six months to discuss the challenges they face promoting the software development movement in large organisations.

Last month the pair decided to share their experiences with a wider group of practitioners, announcing a Melbourne get-together through the MeetUp website called '10 Stories' that attracted some 170 attendees.

The name ’10 Stories’ refers to the difficulties many IT professionals face in encouraging adoption of new practices in the face of the bureaucracy most organisations with “more than 10 floors” might encounter.

• Read iTnews' coverage of agile in Australian enterprise

Today Gough and Verheijden gave a joint presentation to the Agile Australia conference in Sydney, discussing their challenges and providing advice to peers.

“We haven’t by any means solved all the problems, so we want to expand the conversation with others,” Verheijden told attendees, many of whom work for competing banks and service providers.

“We have no preconceptions on who should join – we’d love anyone facing similar challenges to join in and learn.”

Gough noted that the challenge of agile adoption tended to be cultural rather than having much to do with tools and technology.

Stay tuned for more iTnews coverage of lessons from the Agile Australia conference.