 Good morning, everyone. My name is Julie, and I work for Salsa Digital, a digital agency based in Melbourne. Salsa Digital is the official provider of the GavCMS Drupal platform. We also manage the service desk for the Department of Finance, and I work closely with Nathan in my role as the GavCMS Service Desk Manager. Besides that, I've also been managing Drupal projects for the last two and a half years, and I've been working in various other roles and fields in the IT industry prior to that. Hi, everyone. My name is Nathan Wall. I head up the GavCMS team at the Department of Finance. We're an Australian government department. I've had 20 odd years now of doing digital things for Australian government and New Zealand government. I used to be an information architect. I've been a delivery manager. I've been a product owner. Now I get to do fun stuff like budgets and contract management. Anyone who is familiar at all with government procurement knows that there is an awful lot of rules that we need to abide by. What Julie and I are going to talk to you about today is the approach that we've taken to build a really genuine partnership relationship between our two organisations. Instead of what would be usually seen as a traditional customer-supplier relationship. And I can still follow the rules. So yes, let's start with why we're even here to talk about partnerships. And then we're going to talk about what it takes to make them happy. And we'll explain why it does take two to tango. And we might just give you a couple of dance classes. And hopefully by the end of it we'll have you all dancing away with some ideas how you might be able to improve your own partnerships. After all, dancing is meant to be fun. There is no reason why your business partnerships can't be fun and productive too. But if you're still not sure, there will be time for questions. If you're lucky. So we've all seen quotes like this. There is lots being said and written about partnerships and teamwork and how important it is to act as a team to achieve the best outcome. However, when digging a little bit deeper in regards to business relationships, the focus tends to be mostly on how the supplier should and must behave as a partner. Less is being said about the client also needing to act as a partner in order for the relationship to work. And this I have found reflects in the mindset of customers and makes a true partnership virtually impossible. After all, it does take two to tango. If one partner is dancing while the other one is barely moving at all, it will never be beautiful and it will never be good. The truth is, business partnerships are not that different from our personal partnerships. Look at this beautiful old couple. They look happy, don't they? They still managed to glow after 50 years of marriage. Now how did they get here? In all likelihood, they encourage and support each other and they're fair and honest. And I'm pretty sure they're forgiving too because who does go through 50 years together without ever messing up, right? And if you think of any relationship that didn't work out for you, you can probably also pinpoint the lack of any or many of these characteristics to that failure. In personal relationships, it appears obvious to us that each side needs to be committed and contribute equally to the partnership. In business relationships, however, it doesn't seem that clear cut because after all, the customer is king, right? And indeed, suppliers will often do anything to keep their customers around no matter how unfairly they're being treated. And while these relationships can surprisingly last a long time, they're really happy, they rarely produce outstanding results and they're never fun and they do often end in disaster. We both really enjoy the relationship between Salsa and the Department of Finance and we'd like to share with you some of the reasons why and how we try to nourish the relationship ongoing. So sometimes making this kind of really, really solid working relationship work can feel like you're in a bit of a dance competition. I work with a really great team of people at the Department of Finance but we don't provide the full service for GovCMS. It's not that we're not capable, we are, but we don't have the capacity to do it. So we're kind of proud that we break the mould of the traditional government service in that. We kind of might be working for a government agency but we're actually kind of running a business at the same time. The Salsa Digital team, they look after my service desk for me. They also do a lot of work with us on the actual platform itself. Instead of treating them like a traditional supplier, when I treat them like part of my team, I get a much higher standard of service. I get a better quality outcome and that's not just for me but it also means that my customers get a better quality outcome as well. Julie, what are your thoughts? Well, we run our business as usual work very much like an agile project. We have regular stand-ups for example and every two weeks we have a little mini retrospective where we talk about the good and the bad just like you would at the end of a development sprint. It is very healthy to take the time to tell each other what we're really happy about, what is going well because it boosts the motivation of the entire team when their efforts are actually being acknowledged. At the same time it is critical that any issues are identified early before negative feelings have a chance to build up and fester over time. We start every of these sessions on the premise that we're both trying to do our best. When issues are identified, we don't start blaming each other instead we look for the root cause and ways to improve. And while we have these meetings between the two of us initially, we will often involve other members of our teams to help resolve problems. This means that they feel valued and heard but it also makes sure that our solutions are actually reality proof. We need to dance not just between the two of us but basically in every interaction between our teams. It's also really important that you remember that sometimes you just need to forgive. Things will not always go according to plan or perhaps as well as they might have. It's really important that you can say sorry. Yes, I am the customer in this scenario, customer is king. Well, actually you can get past these problems. It's perfectly acceptable as the customer for me to ask for forgiveness as well. It applies to both parties. I have a vested interest in making sure that my supplier does the right thing. Sure, but sometimes you've got to remember that you as the customer can be the one that brings something to the table to actually deliver the fix or the solution. One of the ways that we've done this is to get some flexibility in our contract. We've actually taken an agile approach to creating our contract and that can be a little bit scary. I'll tell you a bit more about that later. I need to figure out sometimes how I can contribute to the success. Embracing change by iteration and building that into your contract is one of the ways that you can achieve that. But seeing things from your supplier's point of view is also critical. Julie, I am really sorry that I missed so many of those service desk check-ins. I know that when I miss those check-ins, the team gets under a whole lot more pressure and it can make some of those tickets a little bit harder to solve and it takes a bit longer. And that's not my customer experience either of us wants. But now that we've changed how we're doing and running those meetings, I know it's going to be easier for me to attend. See, it's not that difficult. No worries, Nathan. Being agile really is more than just running agile development sprints. The way you're working needs to account for change because after all, change is just part of our everyday work. For example, resources being blocked on either side can block an entire project. The contract and the team need to be able to react to this. And some other projects in situations like that, it was for me to solve the problem and for me alone. In a situation like this now with the Department of Finance, I know that both Nathan and I and our respective teams will try to do whatever we can to resolve the issue at hand. It is really less important who caused the issue. The focus is immediately on how it can be fixed. And that of course goes both ways. So a few more thoughts about agile contracting. This is kind of how I started thinking about the contract that GoCMS entered into when we approached the market last year. We knew our project was going to be really complex. It's going to be a multi-year contract. We made a kind of arbitrary decision. We're going to have a partner, not a supplier. We're just going to write the contract that way. It's not really that simple. We definitely decided that we were going to work in an agile way. That's pretty easy. We've been doing agile delivery for projects for quite some time. But writing the contract that way, it's, this is something that doesn't magically happen. We started with an approach to market that kind of started with this entire premise in mind. So at the very beginning of our procurement, we were vetting and selecting and engaging with potential vendors and then eventually with Salsa right through the contract negotiations and then right into the contract. We made some really deliberate statements with them. We also took the opportunity to do some co-design with them. Now, this is something that particularly government doesn't necessarily do all that often or that well. Here's an example of how we did that. In the original proposal that came from Salsa, I didn't like their suggestion for the service desk tool that they wanted us to use. Didn't really fit my budget and we didn't really like the functionality. So we went and did some research. I found a completely different tool, fitted my budget and also looked like it was going to give us the outcome we wanted. And I just said to Salsa, hey guys, can you take a look at this and see if we can make this work as part of what we're providing? You're going to be my service desk manager so I actually needed to look after this tool. I'm just going to tell you which one I want you to use. Actually, it turned out to be a pretty good call. The right contract isn't static or prescriptive. Yes, at the same time, you still need some boundaries around things. So things like service level agreements, yeah, they're kind of baked into the contract. You don't want to be changing them every sprint. Or if you are attempting to change them every sprint, there's probably something fundamentally wrong with your SLAs. That was a pretty good. You can still have a review process for those. That's fine. The way we maintain flexibility is to refer the contract to the agreed sprint backlog. We don't have a really big complicated list of requirements and deliverables that's written into the contract. The sprint process actually gives us the ability to change priorities. It also means that we can pivot if we need to. Now we actually did pivot in a couple of places and some of those pivots were pretty significant. Took us about four months from signing the contract to get into production. We actually ended up doing some pretty big changes as we learned a few things during that time. That was over a series of sprints. We did the dress rehearsals. We absolutely nailed opening night as a result. We moved 120 websites in one weekend. Now it's been just over a year and that relationship is still evolving. GovCMS is evolving. Change is something we're trying to recognize and build into what we do. Or in our case also it's growth because we're growing really, really fast. Because I've brought Salsa into my team and effectively have part of my team, I get a more complete picture of the way ahead. We can also have some of the more challenging conversations when we need to. And we know that those conversations are always going to be constructive. There's nothing in the rules that say I have to work this way. There's also nothing in the rules that say I can't either. So what does it all mean for me as a supplier? It means that I'm not afraid of an honest conversation. When challenges arise, I'm not feeling anxious about that meeting. I know that Nathan and the team will try to support us and try to solve them. For example, we've run into resource challenges in the past where we have seen an unexpected increase in tickets or tasks like the onboarding of new customers to the platform. She's just stepped on my toes, sorry. Yep, yep, yep. This has meant that the tickets were not responded to as quickly as we all would have liked. But now because of the collaborative approach, in the new contract, we now have a search budget in place that I can draw on in these kind of circumstances to ensure that we can handle these situations better in the future. And through our fortnightly check-ins, we've also identified many opportunities for process improvements. As a whole team, we've reviewed tickets together that haven't been resolved smoothly and identified together how each of us can help to ensure that we can provide a better service desk experience to the GavCMS customers. Again, the meeting started off with Oliver saying, hey, we know you've got a lot on, so no one's here to blame. Let's just find out how we can do this better. It sets the tone and gets everyone into a productive mindset as opposed to a defensive one. And because I receive so much trust, I also really try to stay on my toes and make sure that I can prove that I deserve this trust. I'm proactively trying to come up with better ways to do things and challenge the status quo. I strongly feel that both teams and all individuals bring great skills to the table and we're all working towards the same goal as one team. It is that feeling that makes everyone try a little bit harder. It is that feeling that makes everyone go above and beyond. And just like in any good relationship, we will give each other some leeway as well. For example, we may have agreed on a two-week lead time for a specific task, but if occasionally, exceptional circumstances mean that we need to perform this task at Hock, we will certainly try. Just like Nathan said earlier, you could start waving your contract around, et cetera. I could harp on about what was agreed, but I won't because I know that Nathan would never abuse this and they would try to help us in a similar situation, just like that. This is again, how we all maintain flexibility while we, in the way that we interact with one another, while we're still being fair and reasonable. All of this ultimately means that I actually really enjoy my work with GraphCMS and I know so does the rest of the team. And I think we can all agree that we do better work when we like what we're doing. So remember, ask not what your partner can do for you, but what you can do for your partner. I actually truly believe in that statement. If both partners have an attitude of giving rather than receiving, everyone will give and ultimately receive more and the project will have better outcomes. And this goes beyond just the customer-supplier relationship but applies to all interactions we have. So if you are a supplier, think about ways that you may be able to foster a true partnership culture with your clients. And it really may just start with a little regular retrospective where you talk about the bad but where you also talk about the good. If you're a customer and perhaps even a bigger challenge if you're a government customer, I really want you to leave the session today thinking more about what can I do when it comes to agile contracting. It's not a scary concept. For your side of the equation, I really want you to have a look at how you approach your procurement and your contract management. I'm not advocating that you break any of the rules, but make sure you're not following rules that aren't actually there. Often I hear from people that they imagine that there's all sorts of barriers. It means I can't do this, I can't do that, I'll never be allowed to do this. But these may be artificial. So reach out because you might find these little barriers as fragile bubbles and they break as soon as you challenge some of those assumptions. The key to it though is you need to make sure that your supplier that you're working with knows what the song is. You might have to rehearse a little bit to get it right. You might need some practice. We've iterated in a few places, we've experimented with a few things and some of it worked, some of it didn't quite work. So guess what, we did some more practice, changed the dance and found a better way to perform. That flawless performance that you're looking for, it's going to take time. Ultimately, you need your supplier to evolve with you and over time you've got to remember that you will need to learn some new dance moves. Right, this isn't dancing with the stars. Audience participation is actually quite welcome. We'd like to hear about some of your experiences and we're open for questions. You've got a little bit of time now and Julie and Hera are here for the rest of the week. Indeed, go for it. So it sounds like the partnership that you have, it was set up as a partnership from the beginning. Do you have any other suggestions for where there might not be a partnership in mind with an existing relationship that maybe has been there for a couple of years in order to transition that from more of a transactional relationship to more so of a partnership where there wasn't one before? Without naming some specific names, I do have some examples of other commercial relationships that certainly my team has been involved with over the years. To be honest, we're starting to take the same kind of approach, so we might not have started the procurement in the same way or with the same expectations from the very beginning, but if you're working well with your supplier, sit down and talk with them. Actually, tell them that you're interested in figuring out a slightly different way of working with each other. Actually, sit down with them and say, how's this working for you? Because often they're working behind the scenes doing everything that they can to protect their business with you, but that's not necessarily helping you achieve the outcomes that you need either. They might be sort of hiding stuff a little bit from you. You actually need the complete visibility because then you can actually get some of these problems fixed. Just in terms of your agile contract, what did you use as a starting point for that to build the agile contract and where can other government departments find those resources? I think it's going to be fun. Okay, so a completely unrelated, but somewhat related thing. GovCMS also runs a panel of suppliers called the GovCMS Drupal Services Panel. Under that panel arrangement, there is effectively a master agreement that was drafted with our team and our legal advisors an external legal company. We took that and adapted it and then there's a couple of specific parts of those documents that are specific to the arrangements that we have with Salsa. And we just briefed our legal team from the beginning and said, this is the kind of approach we want to take. How do we do it? Thankfully, they had some experience in doing some agile contracting. If anyone is interested in seeing some of those contracts and your government department, please get in touch. I'm happy to share it. All right, we're going to call it quits at this point. Both Julie and I are hovering around for the next couple of days. There's the Salsa stand out in the foyer. The GovCMS stand is out in the foyer. Come and see us or one of the other members of the team.