Firstly, thank you to the audience for taking the time to join this session. I know the world we live in today is incredibly busy, making your presence here even more appreciated.
A little bit about me—I started my career in accounting and finance and was fortunate to fall into the IT sector almost by mistake in the early 2000s. Since then, I’ve worked across various industries, including manufacturing, insurance, banking, mining, and engineering. For almost two decades, I’ve been in professional services, particularly in the legal sector, which has been an exciting place to drive transformation. The legal industry had been stagnant for a long time, and it’s rewarding to be at the forefront of meaningful change.
About MinterEllison
MinterEllison is the largest law firm in the APAC region, with nearly 3,000 employees across 13 offices worldwide. Our headquarters are in Australia, which is great—fewer late-night and early-morning calls! We practice all types of commercial law, including M&A, disputes, infrastructure, real estate, finance, and workplace law. However, we don’t handle family law or criminal law, as those areas tend to be more contentious.
As a firm with nearly 200 years of history, we have strong traditional roots. However, in the past five years, we took a bold step by pivoting into general consulting beyond the legal sphere. Today, in addition to legal services, we provide IT consultancy, risk and regulatory consulting, executive remuneration advisory, and even a full contract lawyer business called Flex. This shift has helped drive openness to digital transformation across the firm.
Key Takeaways from This Session
By the end of this session, I hope you will:
- Understand how to leverage VUCA—the volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity of the world—to strengthen your team and amplify their positive impact.
- Learn how we built greater capacity during a crisis, growing both in size and efficiency while making the most of our stretched team.
- Gain insights into our journey to agility and transformation at a high level.
- Take away key lessons learned from our experience.
Understanding VUCA
VUCA, a term coined by the U.S. military in the late 1980s, describes the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous nature of our world. While the concept originated in military strategy, it is now deeply relevant across all industries. If 2020 taught us anything, it’s that complexity will only increase.
Before diving into the topic, I wanted to try a quick exercise using the chat function. Please type in a few words about what VUCA means for your organization today. What are the main themes you’re experiencing—volatility, uncertainty, complexity, or ambiguity?
(Participants shared responses including disruption, constant pivots, employee retention, business agility, hybrid working, cyber risk, and consumerization, among others.)
These challenges are universal. We are experiencing an extreme phase of VUCA in our careers, and while I hope things settle down for the next generation, we must learn to navigate it effectively.
Why We Needed to Change
Even before COVID, digital teams were at the center of enabling strategic goals. If we look back to the early 2010s, IT was largely a back-office function focused on keeping PCs and phones running. Fast forward to today, and IT has become a key strategic enabler.
Then 2020 arrived, pushing digital transformation into the spotlight like never before. From my kids’ school enabling remote learning with Zoom to large multinationals adapting overnight, technology became mission-critical.
At MinterEllison, we needed a sustainable way to align with three key pillars:
- The firm’s operational priorities
- The firm’s strategic goals
- Creating a sustainable workplace for our team, who were already burning out under intense workloads
Our Approach: Looking Inward
Rather than focusing on external factors beyond our control—like board priorities, market shifts, and industry uncertainty—we turned inward. We asked: How can we better handle uncertainty and constant change? How can we enhance our ability to deliver and execute effectively?
Our IT setup was still very traditional, with rigid silos for infrastructure, applications, and projects. We knew we had to change our thinking and swim against the current.
Adopting Agile
About 14 months ago, we began exploring the merits of Agile principles. At the time, Agile was virtually nonexistent in our organization. A few developers and project managers were familiar with it, but that was it.
We partnered with PMP, led by Marcus Ward in Australia, to bring in deep expertise. The first step was getting our senior leadership team to believe in the vision. They were already feeling the pressure, so we worked closely with them before gradually expanding the conversation.
We ultimately engaged all 150 members of the digital team in a series of Agile 101 workshops. Initially, there was skepticism—"This is just another thing to do," "We don’t need to change." But once we involved them in real workshops, where they had skin in the game, they saw the benefits firsthand.
We then introduced Agile champions within teams and created a new role—an internal Agile coach—to embed the practices further. An unexpected benefit was how quickly Agile spread outside digital. As we involved stakeholders in Agile cycles, product owners outside IT got exposure, and interest grew among finance, the PMO, and marketing teams.
Even our lawyers and clients started showing interest. We now run Agile 101 sessions for them, helping them apply Agile methodologies in their own teams.
Key Highlights and Lessons Learned
Highlights
- Faster delivery: We significantly improved speed and quality of delivery for both clients and internal stakeholders.
- Better collaboration: Communication within digital and across the firm improved dramatically.
- Clearer goals: Sprints and stand-ups gave teams better clarity on priorities and timelines.
- Greater empowerment: Team members felt more in control of their work instead of just executing tasks.
- More sustainable workflows: We reduced tedious meetings and improved clarity, leading to happier employees despite a growing workload.
- Enhanced IT brand: The IT function gained credibility within the firm and even in client interactions.
Lessons Learned
- Start small, build iteratively: Initially, we thought we needed a big structural overhaul. Instead, PMP guided us to take an incremental approach—starting in key areas, building success stories, and expanding from there.
- The toughest stakeholders were our own team: The board and execs wanted results but didn’t care how we got there. The real challenge was convincing our team to embrace new ways of working. The hardest part? Unlearning old habits. If our Agile coach isn’t present, people tend to revert to traditional methods.
Conclusion
We are 12 months into this journey, with at least another six months needed to fully embed Agile across the firm. But even beyond that, Agile isn’t a one-time change—it requires continuous focus and discipline.
Thank you all for your time and for joining this session. I hope you found some valuable takeaways!