Today, I’d like to tell a story—a story about a New Zealand tech company that has managed to build a happy, agile organization. A company where everyone is empowered to make decisions, where nobody can tell anyone else what to do, and where employees can decide what they work on and who they work with.
That company is called Snapper. Snapper creates transport ticketing systems, which means that when you take the underground, the tube, or other public transport, you can pay with a chip card or your phone using NFC technology.
Snapper has been agile for about ten years, and I was the consultant who initially helped them introduce agile. They are a small company—only 60 people—but they punch well above their weight. They power transport systems in Dublin, Riga, and several cities across New Zealand and Europe.
The Challenges of an Agile Organization
Things were going well at Snapper. Agile was working—not just in IT and technology but also in some marketing and sales teams. However, despite this success, challenges remained. Autonomous teams were thriving, but communication was breaking down.
We encountered problems such as:
- Teams duplicating work.
- Marketing being unaware of what development teams were doing.
- Attempts to integrate marketing into teams resulted in them losing touch with their own colleagues.
We knew we needed a different approach. That’s when we came across Holacracy.
Discovering Holacracy
One quote from Holacracy stood out: "When cities grow, they become 15% more productive. When companies grow, productivity declines."
Cities have rules and regulations—such as zoning laws and safety standards—but they don’t dictate where people should open restaurants or what furniture they should put in their houses. Snapper wanted to be more like a city and less like a traditional corporation.
Holacracy’s core beliefs aligned with ours:
- When you treat people like responsible adults, they will act like responsible adults.
- Decision-making should happen at the level where information resides—leading to faster and better decisions.
Despite skepticism—due to conflicting reports and the sheer number of rules in Holacracy—we decided to give it a fair try, overcoming our biases and deferring judgment.
The Core Concepts That Made a Difference
1. Autonomous Circles
Holacracy is built around autonomous circles—teams with a purpose and complete freedom in how they achieve that purpose. Each circle:
- Can structure itself however it wants.
- Can use any methodology it prefers.
- Receives its purpose from a parent circle.
This structure looks like nested Russian dolls, with a focus that gets narrower at each level. It provides absolute freedom while maintaining accountability.
For Snapper, this had a profound impact. Conversations about accountability became easier. The CEO felt a weight lifted because he no longer had to worry about everything—teams owned their responsibilities.
Importantly, this is not a flat hierarchy—it’s a hierarchy of purpose, not of people.
Additionally, teams could restructure themselves instantly. For example, we initially mirrored traditional functions (marketing, finance, tech). But once we realized we could structure around customer outcomes instead, we made that change in one meeting. No lengthy restructuring process. No HR bureaucracy. Just a decision and immediate implementation.
2. Roles Instead of Job Titles
Traditional job descriptions rarely match reality. Holacracy surfaces these mismatches by giving everyone multiple, clearly defined roles instead of rigid job titles.
At Snapper, each person had three to five roles. This allowed people to craft their jobs to match their strengths. For example:
- A Solutions Architect realized he hated cold calling but loved designing transport solutions. He split the role, allowing someone else to take on sales.
- One team member started mentoring developers, acquiring a new skill that better suited him.
Roles could also be temporary. When we needed an Audit Coordinator for a PricewaterhouseCoopers audit, someone took on the role. Once the audit was done, the role disappeared—no structural changes needed.
Defining these roles was tedious but valuable. We uncovered hidden inefficiencies—like a coach spending 70% of their time coding or a program manager stuck in first-level support. Once identified, we reallocated these tasks.
3. Tensions and Decision-Making by Consent
In Holacracy, a tension is the gap between what is and what could be. Surfacing tensions fosters continuous improvement.
Holacracy provides structured meetings for processing tensions using decision-making by consent (not consensus).
Consent-based decision-making:
- Prioritizes action over endless discussion.
- Only requires that no one has a valid objection—not that everyone agrees.
- Allows experimentation, provided proposals are safe to try.
For example, one of our architects noticed we had too many AWS instances running but didn’t know which ones to shut down. He proposed a simple policy. Since no one objected, the decision was made in a single meeting and implemented within a week. Previously, this would have taken months.
These small daily improvements add up, leading to significant progress over time.
Three Years Later: The Results
Snapper has now been running on Holacracy for three years. Some teams are more experienced than others, but overall, the system works. Things no longer fall through the cracks.
More importantly, we know that as the company grows, it can remain adaptable—scaling like a city, not a bureaucratic corporation.
Final Thoughts: Is Holacracy Good or Evil?
My initial skepticism remains, but my conclusion is this:
Holacracy amplifies culture.
If your culture is collaborative, Holacracy enhances collaboration and clarifies responsibilities. If your culture is power-driven and siloed, Holacracy will reinforce those dysfunctions.
Like agile in its early days, Holacracy will evolve. Just as we once thought 30-day sprints were revolutionary, our understanding of self-management will mature.
For now, I believe Holacracy, business agility, and a healthy dose of common sense can create meaningful change.
And just as we say it’s not just about doing agile but being agile, I’d say:
It’s not just about doing Holacracy—it’s about being Holacratic.