This story from the transformation of Lonely Planet’s enterprise using agile methods and techniques is written by the Lonely Planet Director of IT Ed Cortis, and as he is at pains to point out, is the end result of a large number of people’s hard work and commitment.

Ed firmly espouses the toothpaste model of leadership – in that whilst you may appear to be at the head of things, you are merely being pushed along by the majority of the people and their work still hidden in the tube. This is much discussed as the ‘servant leadership’ model among agilists.

So, with due credit to his team, I present the story of the LP SAP team and their transformation from an unfavoured ‘back office’ shared service, to one of the leading teams in the company in terms of Net Promoter Score and tangible business results. Ed has written the story using Prezi, and  will speak further on this topic at Agile Australia 2012 in Melbourne. Apologies to the non-flash clients, Prezi aren’t quite there yet when it comes to modern technology.

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