#149 | From Kid Coder to Tech Leader, Adventures in AI and Global Tech with Martin Cooperwaite

Martin Cooperwaite, co-founder of Kiandra, takes us from his early days of coding adventure games as a kid to leading one of Australia’s top software companies. Inspired by his dad’s source code books, Martin’s passion for tech evolved from childhood tinkering to co-founding Kiandra with a friend in 1995, starting with local projects and growing into a global digital transformation leader with offices across Melbourne, Perth, and Toronto.

Martin shares how simple beginnings led to high-impact projects in health, finance, and government, with an emphasis on client care and innovative solutions that have earned Kiandra over 18 awards. We discuss Agile practices, responsible AI, and low-code platforms, while Martin reflects on the role of perseverance, collaboration, and a human-centered approach to tech-driven success. 

Join us for insights into building a legacy in software while staying hands-on and true to mission.

In this episode we cover: 

0:00 Software Development Journey and Business Success

9:49 Early Days of Business Growth

21:14 Evolution of Agile Practices and Governance

28:53 Tech Evolution and Responsible AI Use

35:59 Navigating AI use in Software Development 

45:41 Innovative Projects and Financial Insights

53:38 Leveraging AI for Business Growth 

and more

To connect with Martin: 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/martincooperwaite/

https://www.kiandra.com.au/ 

Transcript

Software Development Journey and Business Success

Fatimah Abbouchi 0:00

You're listening to Agile Ideas, the podcast hosted by Fatima Rabouchi. For anyone listening out there not having a good day, please know there is help out there. Hi everyone and welcome back to another episode of Agile Ideas. I'm Fatima, CEO at AMO, Mental Health Ambassador and your host. On today's podcast I have Martin Cooper-Waite, who is the co-founder and director at Piandra.

Fatimah Abbouchi 0:29

Martin's journey in business and in the technical space started at a really young age when his dad used to buy him source code books to help him learn basic coding. It's something that ended up becoming a passion and in the 1990s he teamed up with a high school friend to actually help with a project at his uncle's accounting firm. The project went so well they ended up setting up a business and then it's been inundated with work ever since then. Through running this new business, they have opened offices in Melbourne, Perth and Toronto many years later, and they have begun helping clients with complex problems More recently, with the emphasis on AI and low-code software, the company go from an original little development house to an international award-winning business, having won over 18 awards for innovation, services and company culture. It's also helped them get into CRN and the Deloitte fastest growing companies list numerous times.

Fatimah Abbouchi 1:36

Having delivered hundreds of projects for some of Australia's most well-known brands and accumulating half a million hours of experience, they only bid on projects they can deliver. Key projects include major statewide solutions for health and national global solutions for financial services. After 29 years in business, Martin is still very much hands-on, with most of his time spent working closely with his team and clients to ensure they stay true to their mission of changing the software experience. Please join me in welcoming Martin to the show. Martin, welcome to the show.

Martin Cooperwaite 2:11

Thank you very much.

Fatimah Abbouchi 2:12

It's been a long time coming. I know we've had to push it out a few times, but I was told that you're someone I need to speak to and when I looked at your history and your background and experience with your company, I just thought, yes, we definitely need to talk. I think there's a lot of valuable insights that people can get from you. Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got to where you are today, beyond what I've explained to the audience with the bio okay, so well, I guess.

Martin Cooperwaite 2:45

Yeah, I mean, I've had Kyandra since I was at university and really it was an extension of what I love to do and what I learned to do as a child and I've been really lucky that I've been able to do what I find for fun and it's all worked out really, really well. But ultimately what we do is we're a software development company. We often are engaged to implement innovation-led initiatives for businesses or government where they really want to enact change or dramatic improvement. You know you wouldn't engage us for oh, I want a new website to you know, to be like a different kind of brochure for my business. But often we're engaged where there'll be an organization where they say, right, we operate in this way, how could we get 20 times the revenue in, you know, in a year? And so it'll be a digital based initiative to drive that. So usually it's really a significant change that they're driving for and that's why we get engaged and it's a lot of fun, a lot of the time. So, yeah, I'm very lucky.

Fatimah Abbouchi 3:59

And so how did your software development journey sort of start? And I hear that there's been some interesting relationship with Dick Smith and some computers. Tell us a little bit about that relationship with Dick Smith and some computers.

Martin Cooperwaite 4:06

Tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, so when I was growing up, my dad was actually obsessed with Dick Smith, but in the context of he had a helicopter and Dick Smith was, I think he was like the first person to fly around the world in a helicopter. And my dad was just obsessed by Dick Smith and loved his helicopter, and so he actually built a model replica of Dick Smith's helicopter and used to fly it like it was a small it was about, um, you know, maybe a fifth or a sixth of the size and used to fly it and he won all these awards with it and things. And then. So then Dick Smith, um, and so I'm 50 now, right, so, but back when I was I don't know, uh, this would have been in the uh around 1980 or something. It was. Dick Smith had a computer that he released and my dad had to have it, and then he was also like everyone else was playing sort of these Atari 2600 consoles as kids.

Fatimah Abbouchi 4:58

I don't know if you remember that. Yes, I do, we did.

Martin Cooperwaite 5:01

Okay, well, my dad was like not, uh, you're not having that. Um, you can go. You can. If you want to play a game on the on your computer, that's fine, but you're going to type in the source code. So we go down to the basically a shop which was called um, I think it was like radio shack or tandy or something and you get this big book of source code and you give it to me and I was very little and it made me type it in and it would take me weeks and weeks, if not months, and eventually I get to like it would be.

Martin Cooperwaite 5:31

I'd make so many mistakes and have to work out. You know, oh, there was an error on this line and what did I type in wrong? Eventually we'd get there and then I'd have a computer game to play. But that kind of ingrained in me a love of software development, of like the process of writing instructions. But then there was so much creativity baked into the whole process as well, that, and I loved it. And then it really set me, you know, even though I was, you know, I really wanted the Atari, like my friends, it actually set me in a good sort of a foundation to do, you know the path I've been on and for that I'm really grateful.

Fatimah Abbouchi 6:06

What an interesting story and so unique, particularly. You know, like you said, it's probably a 30, actually more than 30 years ago by the sounds of it, when you sort of started in that space. It's interesting to see that you know, like you said, your passion has now become a business. Tell us about how your business came to be and where did the name Diandra come from.

Martin Cooperwaite 6:29

Yeah, so originally. So as much as I love doing software, I also loved building computers and working with them, and I was fascinated by them, and so that was very much a hobby of mine too. And so when I was a teenager, I used to build computers and I'd fix friends computers for them when they were having problems with them. And then what would happen is that the workplaces that these like the parents of my friends workplaces would sort of hear about the work I had done and they're like oh, could you come and fix the same problem we're having at work on our computers there? And so I'd went and I went and did that and, um, you know, it was like, uh, at the time I remember, um, I was working at McDonald's and I don't know, we were being paid five dollars an hour. And I'm going, I go to this company, which was, you know, uh, through a friend, and and they said well, how much do we owe you, thanks for fixing the computers? And I'm like I've got no idea. And they said well, you know, we used to pay IBM $120 an hour. Well, you know, you're really young, and so why don't we just pay you half that? And I'm like are you kidding me? That's amazing. You know, I'm this kid who was getting five bucks an hour at Maccas and then they suddenly pay me $60 an hour. So I'm like, hang on a minute, maybe I really should look at this.

Martin Cooperwaite 7:47

And then so I was doing that work and then I had this really lame name for the business. It was system solutions, like really dry, like seriously, it couldn't be any more cliche at the time. And so here I am, I'm like, oh well, I need to probably register a business name. And so what, I went to and by this stage I'm at university and I'm late for an exam. And then I'd gone to the, like the registry office there and I think back then it was like $70 to register your business name. And I'd gone there and they had these old green screen computers and you know, they said, well, what name are you thinking of? And I typed in system solutions and the computer was like, that's fine, you should be all good to go.

Martin Cooperwaite 8:24

So I went up to the front counter and then I, um, I said, oh look, I want to have the name system solutions, right, which you know really boring. But either way, that's what I felt. I was a good, you know official sounding name for for a computer business. And, um, the lady behind the desk who was this sort of like quite sort of large, older, intimidating woman, um, uh sort of said to me, well, you can't have that, it's too close to other business names. And I'm like, oh, oh, no, I you know, and I sort of froze, I didn't know what to do.

Martin Cooperwaite 8:51

And then she said to me, well, what street do you live on? And I said, oh, it's called kyandra. And she goes, that'll do. And then she just went like accept and and logged it without even checking with me if I was okay. And then then I was like, all right, I guess that's the name of the business there. So that's where it came from. But it ended up being quite good for us because everyone else had names like System Solutions or Data Tech or any other kind of nerdy sounding techie names, and we had this really unusual name at the time. So this is back in 1995 of Kyandra and it just sort of stuck. And then it got to the point where things had grown and we'd established a little bit of a name for ourselves and it was kind of too late for us to unravel that then and we didn't want to either, so we've just sort of hung on to it, and that's how the name was born.

Fatimah Abbouchi 9:37

And so your business name has an interesting story, but your actual business came to be after you did a piece of work for a friend. Your co-founder's uncle is that right?

Martin Cooperwaite 9:49

Yeah, so back in the early days, kyandra didn't actually at the very beginning, we didn't really do much software development at all. At the very, very beginning it was simple jobs like getting three computers to talk to each other, share a printer and share files in one location. So that would be a sort of a classic project. And what actually happened back then was that, um, I knew my business partner. He was a friend of mine at school, uh and uh, so cam his name is, and he, he had sort of we'd both gone off to different universities and I was doing my own thing ie system solutions, but then sort of and then he contacted me and sort of said, oh, I've actually got this project for my uncle. He's an accountant and he's got an accounting firm and they want to connect a bunch of computers together and things. And you're the nerdiest person I know, could you help me with it? And I said, yeah, sure, and so we then worked together and the it went really, really well. And then this was on it.

Martin Cooperwaite 10:40

This was like an accounting firm, as I was saying before on, like it was in Surrey Hills and like all the businesses knew each other up and down the street. And then, you know, they were friends with the law firm up the road. And so the law firm contacts us and said, oh, I heard what you did for that company. Could you do the same thing for us? We've got 30 computers.

Martin Cooperwaite 10:59

And you know, and back then it was such a different dynamic compared to nowadays, like we were so naive but we were so lucky and like, so, with these kids, we've got this law firm, no contracts, nothing. And like we've got no money. And so they're like, well, we want 30 computers. And I said, oh, could you pay up front? Like just not even thinking how bad that would be perceived, just a dumb kid just asking that. And they're like, yeah sure, and kid just asking that. And they're like, yeah sure, and they did, and there were no contracts or nothing, like everything was just done verbally. Um, and so it really. You know, really we were very lucky that we could, you could start with such naivety in an environment like that yeah, we certainly can't operate like that anymore.

Martin Cooperwaite 11:37

But uh, I I certainly think you know there was a in that time. So I would say in melbourne or aust in the mid-90s, with the level of naivety with technology but the desperate desire for companies to incorporate it, I mean we were literally replacing typewriters. Like that was the kind of environment that we're dealing with, and like there would be an internet computer, just one machine in the building which was like the fax machine that everyone shared. So this is way before the modern stuff now, but it was also an unsophisticated business environment. So a couple of kids who were clueless, you know, and we used to get tagged as the whiz kids, and so we'd just come in and we'd do these projects, and then it grew from there, and then we did another one and another one on the street, and then Cam and I were like, wow, this is actually really getting somewhere. Why don't we kind of join forces?

Martin Cooperwaite 12:25

And then, so what happened then? And sorry, I slightly misspoke before, this is actually pre-95. This is earlier than that, because what actually happened in 95 was Kyandra was incorporated as a company, and that's when Cam and I were both co-founders. We ended up keeping the same name that I had previously. The stuff I'd mentioned has actually happened pre-95.

Fatimah Abbouchi 12:50

But yeah, kyandra was born officially as a company in 95. Well, that's a fascinating story and I think you're right. And you know, when you're in that early stage of business and you don't know what you're doing, because of you know you had youth on your side. I think that you can make a lot more mistakes. But to hear that a law firm didn't even ask for a contract, it makes me no, that stakes.

Fatimah Abbouchi 13:05

But to hear that a law firm didn't even ask for a contract, it makes me know that's. But you know what? You're right, I think it's the desperation side of it especially. I mean I was definitely not using any computers back then, but I think the idea of having you know a need, something that is way outside the comfort zone of of these businesses, which is usually where you find that niche. But my thing is you should have called it the whiz kids.

Martin Cooperwaite 13:24

Maybe it wouldn't have lasted till now I actually reckon I think there is a business called that, so that you know. But anyway. But yeah, fair enough. Maybe we should have so.

Fatimah Abbouchi 13:34

So you've now been in business for 30 plus years, um, from when you started. That's a remarkable achievement, for you've been able to set up a business the same name and to grow from where you started to now, and, of course, you've probably had lots and lots of learnings and lessons along the way. Probably they've changed each decade. Can you share maybe some of the challenges? I know you've shared a couple already, but as your business progressed, what were some of the challenges that you faced early on?

Martin Cooperwaite 14:09

So yeah, I think really, really early on, as I said, we were really lucky because we had that support and so, whereas a lot of other businesses may have started then, uh, you know, and they would have had issues with funding or other pieces, we were lucky enough to have clients pay in advance and those sorts of things. So we were really lucky. I think the first, the first major impact for us was when we started in 95. By 1998 we had grown significantly and we were building, um, uh, for example, uh, the fleet management system for fosters, as in the you know, the fosters beer, well, carlton united breweries and fosters. We were doing, we were at that level. So we'd gone from, you know, three computers in a little accounting firm in 95 to enterprise software in 98. So we, we really had grown quite significantly, very rapidly.

Martin Cooperwaite 14:54

Um, and then for us, the big was the dot com bubble bursting, I would say would be the burst. So you know, if you remember back, you know, leading up to the year 2000, uh, everyone was spending huge the burst. So you know, if you remember back, you know, leading up to the year 2000, everyone was spending huge amounts of money on, you know, the information superhighway which then became the internet and ludicrous business models were being massively funded by ignorant investors. And it was just, you know, it was very, it was always going to burst. It was just awful, but from that perspective, what that meant is that companies would just they stopped spending. So you know. So that was you know. So that was probably our first major impact and and I guess some some sort of foundation principles was what what helped us see that issue through. And then similar but different context, but similar impacts, like with the global financial crisis and other impacts along the way as well, and that was, um, a couple of things.

Martin Cooperwaite 15:53

One, one of the things that cam and I've always had it from a mindset, is that we it's really important to honor our commitments and to authentically care, and we really felt that the work we were doing was an extension of our personalities and personal brand and so, for example, say, we did a piece of piece of work for a client, um, and it was really important that there people in the neck and we work really late in the night to make sure everything was done outside of, so we didn't disrupt their operations.

Martin Cooperwaite 16:23

And then we would like and I mean, I mean this sounds a bit gross, but we would kind of we'd sleep under the desk to make sure that we were there for when the very first person arrived, that we could help them and make sure they were enabled. And you know, whenever anyone had a problem, we were, um, mortified and, uh, we would do everything we could to fix it. And and then, and when we said that we would do something, even if it cost us a lot of money, because we really shouldn't have made that commitment, we still suck it through anyway. Um, and our industry, software development in particular, is notorious for promising and under delivering, and we, we never wanted to be the same.

Martin Cooperwaite 17:03

The other thing too is. So for us it was perceived as being a real difference in engaging with us. And you know, because we were a small business, we'd often get compared to other small businesses and a lot of small businesses, you know, they, if you think about, you know, like, take a lot of small businesses being like trade, like the cliche trading. You know how many times you hear, hear, oh, the trading ever turned up or um, they were late and they didn't call and other bits and pieces and things, you know. And we, we were like we're not going to be that, because in the early days we were almost seen as, seen as kind of like a trade, um, you know, implementing computers or implementing, you know, an electrician doing work or a plumber, like they were kind of almost slightly conceptually bundled together in that same concept. So we were like, no, we must honour our commitments and our word. So that was one aspect.

Martin Cooperwaite 17:51

And the other one was having fairly conservative financial management. So you know, we weren't buying all the spending, all the money and things. You know we were very conservative with making sure we had cash reserves and things and, um, you know, and that and and that we could look after our people and you know we didn't hire and fire flippantly, you know, based on an impact and things, because one of the things we've learned very much is around having having a team of awesome people who who have so much experience delivering projects together and working together, um, consistently and over and over again, drives high performance, as opposed to, oh, here's another project. We need to hire this role, this role, this role, and you plonk a whole bunch of strangers together and hope it just to be high performance. That doesn't work at all.

Martin Cooperwaite 18:38

And so, for us, having that sort of conservative financial management, so that we weren't having to all of a sudden let people go higher, let people go higher based on changing market conditions, so that we weren't having to all of a sudden let people go higher, let people go higher based on changing market conditions, meant that we could retain great talent and have a great team of people. And we've got lots of people who have been with us for, you know, over 10 years, over 15 years and the vast majority over five, you know, whereas in our industry, people usually leave after a couple of years. So, you know, so we've been, we've been lucky that we've been able to hang on to those people there too.

Fatimah Abbouchi 19:07

It's. It's really interesting, but one of the the most common challenges for businesses is that financial aspect, so the fact that you were able to, you know, pay extra attention to that. You must've had some really good systems and processes in place to be able to manage manage that. But not only that. Also in terms of being organised, particularly when knowing where you were back then, it would have been pre all these amazing software products that help you be organised and, you know, enable you to coordinate and manage all your work you were probably doing things quite manually to begin with. I wanted to touch on something I'm very passionate about and that our listeners are very passionate about, and that's the Agile space. So Agile itself means different things to different people, but a lot of people coincide Agile with software development, and I'm curious to know how Agile itself has been relevant to you early on, when you first knew what Agile was, and how it's evolved in your business today.

Evolution of Agile Practices and Governance

Martin Cooperwaite 20:08

Yeah, well, as you would probably not be surprised to hear, Agile has had a massive impact on the software development industry and us in particular. I think it was I'm trying to remember, was it it might have been 2001 when the manifesto came out and, um, it was just, it was a huge. And then you had like, obviously you had massive leaders in the industry, like thought, works and things, you know, trailblazing and it was, I think, for us, I mean by the mid 2000s, so maybe maybe 2003, 2004, it was starting to like it was just common and it was baked deep into how we worked. And I think you know it was uh, certainly pre then, everything was was very waterfall and I'm assuming everyone who would listen to this would understand the concept of waterfall. Um, yep, okay, so uh and uh. So, yes, it was. It certainly was a massive shift, you know, and I think it started. When I look at what we do now compared to what we started with, I mean really it started in the early 2000s. For us it wasn't, it wasn't like there was this massive framework. We just kind of followed. It was more taking the spirit and aspects of things.

Martin Cooperwaite 21:28

So I think back then where we began for agile, it was, um, firstly, breaking out of the um, big, big bang mindset around. So if you're building software, you, you, uh, you develop the whole thing over over here in isolation, away from away from the business, and then you, you know, you come back to them and say, here you go. So in the past year there'd be a massive specification written up we go away for you know, six months or a year, come back and go, here you are, we've built to your specification. So really the key thing was around involving client business people as part of the core team delivering together. You know we were incorporating very much an MVP approach and then individually improving it and then that started evolving into, you know, face-in-face engagement was massive.

Martin Cooperwaite 22:21

You know working in two-week sprints. You know back then and still is today, but even just in its infancy for us. You know working in two-week sprints. You know back then and still is today, but even just in its infancy for us. You know that concept of stand-ups. You know, delivering the work in two-week sprints, showcasing the work you did every two weeks, that was quite a new thing, right, that was really quite. People just couldn't get their head around it, like, well, hang on, but there'll be nothing done or valuable to show you know. And then retrospectives and then learning what we learned from that two week period and then applying that into your sprint plan for the next sprint. You know, the other thing I think back in then was we were also really trying to focus on eliminating waste and blockers and how can we be, how can we deliver more efficiently, and what and delivering what actually matters was a key change.

Martin Cooperwaite 23:04

You know, in that mid-2000s, um. And then I think too, you know that, um, when we couldn't have people there physically present, having the idea that we take for granted. Now, like you and I are talking here, we're talking over zoom, but, like um, back then it was really radical, for what we did is we had these trolleys and with a television and a camera and a computer, and when someone wasn't there, but they were still working as part of the team, everyone else would be in the office and we'd have like a pod and so people were working together and then in one of the pod positions we would put um, like one of our guys who moved overseas but we still wanted to work with him. His name was brad and so we created what was called the brad bot, and the brad bot was this yeah trolley thing that we made it look like a, basically like a big lego man with the tv and stuff and that was brad and brad's face was on the screen and he would work that way. And then obviously fast forward and there was COVID and things and everyone adapted to working in that kind of manner. But back then the tech was nowhere near as good as it is today.

Martin Cooperwaite 24:14

But we sort of crudely put something together into that, into the delivery, you know, taking that product owner role, teaching them how to be product owners, having that feedback and things where we've sort of really really started. And then I mean, if we think about where that's kind of gone to, so we started that there in its infancy and if you sort of had a snapshot of today. You know, like I guess we you know the way sort of. You know we obviously establish really it's really important to have clear objectives and vision. We define the roles and responsibilities in our projects. We're still doing sprint, sprint planning, daily standups, sprint reviews, retrospectives where, you know, as I mentioned before, we're still educating client team members and stakeholders so they can participate in those agile you know agile activities as well and be, and that training is an ongoing thing. You don't sort of do it once. You know. A lot of these people haven't had that experience, so that's something we bake into how we operate with our clients.

Martin Cooperwaite 25:11

Um, we're now injecting probably more governance into the whole process than we used to. So, you know it's about aligning government uh sorry, governance focused meetings aligning with agile events. So the governance review meetings are tied to the same sort of sprint events, reviewing progress, risks, compliance. They're aligned to also delivery of sprints too. Um, you know, we're using burndown charts, velocity tracking and other agile metrics to provide transparent um and kind of project updates in real time. That's a key evolution from where we started. We weren't doing that in the early agile days.

Martin Cooperwaite 25:48

I think breaking that mould of massive, complex reporting and instead just really making sure stakeholders got concise and relevant reports, aligning with the governance requirements without overburdening them and us has been really important too. Stakeholders got concise and relevant reports, aligning with the governance requirements without overburdening them, and us was. It's been really important to. Um, you know, whereas I think if you go back years and years and years ago, it was about who could build the most comprehensive and time-wasting report possible. You know, all of that that mindset of the more content I produce means I'm perceived as doing a better job just has been stripped away.

Martin Cooperwaite 26:22

We maintain a risk register. We didn't even have, I think, in the early 2000s, we wouldn't even know what one was, but now maintain a risk register. We're reviewing that regularly and we're aligning that with agile practices and governance needs. We ensure that all our tasks are related to compliance, and regulations as well are included in the sprint backlog, because they're just as important as development tasks, um, and we keep detailed records of all decisions, all changes, approvals and everything to satisfy governance orders and reviews. So we don't want to over document, but I think decision logs and that kind of stuff are still critical, um, especially if if you get into a bit of a a debate about who made, why was that decision made, you know three months ago, so, yeah, so I think that's kind of how we've evolved from that perspective. Yeah.

Fatimah Abbouchi 27:11

It's really some really good insights there. I wanted to touch on a couple of things. Well, I think you know one of the ones that really stood out was around helping to train people, training stakeholders. I think you're spot on. One of the things we see quite a lot of is in organizations. You know, even if you think about we talked you mentioned waterfall before, which I think majority of people listening would know what that is.

Fatimah Abbouchi 27:34

A lot of organizations typically do you know waterfall style project management. Some people say that's not a project management method. I'm not saying it is, I'm just saying the style. And then you know it took them a really long time to get their head around that. And then you bring in this agile thing whether it's back in 2001 or more recently with the sort of rise of banking using it heavily in the last five to 10 years and then you expect stakeholders to understand what agile is, which was difficult for us to understand what agile is. So the fact that you're spending the time to not just train but continuously upskill people in what their role is in that in particular, like the PO roles and things, I think that's really good. One question I have just around the governance review meetings. Who's performing the governance review? Is it embedded within the team that is in the project or do you have a separate function or person or role that actually does the governance review meetings?

Martin Cooperwaite 28:31

No, we embed it, rightly or wrongly. We embed it within our team because it's a core part of what we feel that everyone has to be trained on and ultimately it's led by sort of the project managers and the business analysts together. But it's very much a project management-led activity in our team, so the project manager will drive that.

Tech Evolution and Responsible AI Use

Fatimah Abbouchi 28:50

Oh, awesome. And then, in terms of you know, you mentioned briefly around like techs now change significantly. And then we know that with the rise of agile came, you know, all these really agile based software like lassian's toolkit, jira, confluence, all those sorts of things. But just generally, technology wise, as you've evolved the business and sort of more in the last sort of five to ten years, how has the tech changed for you in your business, particularly being techies, um to be able to help run and operate your business?

Martin Cooperwaite 29:26

yeah, so I mean, we're very much on the atlassian bandwagon, uh, and so, yeah, we definitely use their tools. I think the the tools that have actually made the biggest difference are not so much the management tools for us personally, but more the delivery tools, because one of the biggest challenges we have is that there's the two opposing forces that we see in relation to the spirit of engaging in an agile manner is often at odds with the procurement contractual aspects and legal aspects, which are very closely related. So that was, that's all. So that has been a challenge for so long from you know, and you would see, for example, um a much more maturity on on sort of technology-based companies who have internal teams running. You know, agile beautifully and so, but then, when, say, government was engaging a service provider like us to deliver an outcome, they just they would say agile, but then it would be under a completely waterfall framework.

Martin Cooperwaite 30:39

And so the challenge is and they were, it would be under a completely waterfall framework. And so so the challenge is and we've they, they were it would literally be you need to guarantee a fixed price, fixed scope, outcome, but I want you to deliver it agile. So it was just ridiculous. And so what we actually have found and what's been I mean that to be that hasn't changed enough. Right, you think it would have evolved, but it hasn't. And so what we've seen now is the tech we used to do.

Martin Cooperwaite 31:05

If you think about software development, most people would say, right, well, yeah, I imagine you're sitting there and you're writing code and it's lines and lines of code, and it used to be that way.

Martin Cooperwaite 31:14

For us, around 2017, the low code is the term used, uh, to describe technology where the software kind of builds itself and where you instead use kind of drag and drop methods.

Martin Cooperwaite 31:30

And so, for example, a very simple example might be say, you had an excel spreadsheet, right, uh, you could drag that and you drop it on, and then what that does is it automatically creates the database for you based on the information in the spreadsheet, and then what it will do is it'll go right, well, you'll need these screens and you see, you drag the tables.

Martin Cooperwaite 31:50

If you think about data in tables, so I might have a data, I have a table of customers, and then we should say I had a table of orders, well, I could grab in low code you could grab that table of customers and it already understands because how they're all connected. They know that customers have orders. You could grab the customers and the orders stuff and you drop it on a screen and it would build out a screen with all the fields and it would show you, okay, here's the customer and there's that customer's orders. And so that was quite mind-blowing for us in the industry and we'd seen things in its infancy and a lot of people who played around with you may have heard of Microsoft Access, which was a, you know, was a user of that.

Martin Cooperwaite 32:30

Yeah Well, in 2017, in our opinion, low-code tools became enterprise grade. So when you're building serious software for serious problems, serious initiatives, it you know which access is not. Um, it was, it was fantastic, and so what that enabled us to do, and still does today, is to operate and deliver. As kind of weird as this sounds, operate and deliver in a manual mode, or, sorry, operate and deliver in an agile mode that's the word I'm trying to say but under the framework of a fixed price, uh, procurement engagement, which is still mandated by so many government in particular, but even enterprise organizations, and that's the reason is, it allows us to have the flexibility and to embrace change, which is a core part of agile. Because you, that change is for good, because it means that, like, what we're going to actually then deliver is better. There's a reason that drove that change change is not the enemy anymore, and you don't have you know, you don't have to punish the client now to say, oh, you're raising a change, you have to raise a change request. What you can do is you can adapt and and implement change and embrace the essence of agile, but still have that kind of overarching, old, archaic procurement model, and so that's been fantastic.

Martin Cooperwaite 33:49

For us, ai is now that on steroids, and AI in particular is a massive part, and we're transitioning hugely ourselves right now. I mean, we're investing very heavily in our own people, pivoting the way we work to leverage these AI tools because, yeah, I mean, ai is so embedded into not just these low-code platforms, but into so much now, and what it means is a lot of people, I think they're terrified that they're going to lose their role or the roles at risk due to AI, but I don't think that's at all. What you need to do is embrace it and then turbocharge what you can offer, because you can be 10 times more productive, but your knowledge and your experience and skills and intuition and everything is still just as critical, but you've just got this AI helper to make you just be, yeah, so much more productive. So that's the approach we're taking, which is seeing services costs drop significantly and the quality of output actually increase.

Fatimah Abbouchi 34:46

Well, on that, you know, there is the school of thought that with the increase of AI, yes, it should therefore make organisations more productive and lower the cost, but the question is whether the end consumer is actually going to reap the benefit or if some some of these companies you know that will will gain the productivity and the cost you know benefits but not actually pass it on to the customer.

Fatimah Abbouchi 35:10

So there's a question there. But on ai, I'm really interested in your thoughts. I've been to some recent events and they were talking about, you know, using ai responsibly and then also talking about the fact that with AI, it's very much it's about sensitive data and how that some employees in some companies. There was a really big news story in government recently where there was a caseworker that had got an AI to produce a report that ended up impacting a child that was in the social space quite negatively because they were putting in data. So how do you as a company either advise your customers or yourself work through how to use agile sorry AI responsibly? Is there anything that you use or follow to help you, guide you in that journey?

Navigating AI Use in Software Development

Martin Cooperwaite 35:58

Yeah. So for us what's really important is to understand the AI tool you want to use and how and where it processes the data and what happens with it. And so, yeah, I mean we've seen not firsthand but second or third hand examples where, for example, people would take sensitive information, drop it into a large language model and then the large language model was being trained on that information that they dropped in and then someone else on the other side of the world would then make a query against the LLM and then some of that information bubbled up over here. And yeah, and I'm sure there'll be lots of AI experts saying, well, that doesn't happen because of A, b or C. Well, that's what I was told had happened. And so and that's certainly I was at the TechInGov conference and we were presenting there earlier this year and they were talking about specific examples of that and what they're concerned about. And so the way we tackle it is yes, so understand, for example, work out the constraints you have to operate under. So it might be that government might say to us or an enterprise might say well, we're happy to use AI as long as the processing and the data storage all occurs in Australia. So you can find out, for example, if you just use chat GPT, as of you and I talking now, my understanding is that it is processed overseas and you can't not have it be the case, so you need to understand that. So, however, there are other AI services provided in data centers based in Sydney, for example. That isn't so. Therefore, you can use those tools and things as well. Likewise, you know, I think you can be careful and selective about what are you going to put into the or use with AI and say, for example, if there's, what are you trying to? If you're trying to increase productivity, does it really need to include this sensitive information? How could you do it differently so that you could still get some productivity gain without including that sensitive information? But there are also, once again, there are AI tools available now where you can have your own private infrastructure and it's not in, you know, and then so you would leverage that.

Martin Cooperwaite 38:22

I believe companies like Databricks and those sorts of things. You know that's one of their key value propositions and I apologise to anyone if that's not correct. From our perspective, you know those issues there, because we don't consult clients on how to use AI in general across all different contexts. For us, it's around building software. So the beauty and, I guess, the luxury for us is that when we're building software, we're building brand new software and we're not using data with sensitive information. We don't have the same level of issues and the same level of limitations that, for example, an organization would have if they're looking at huge volumes of, say, patient records and they're wanting to use AI to analyse that. That's a much harder problem and, lucky for us, we don't have to deal with that. For us, it's around how can we build that piece of software with those features faster and with a higher level of security, and so we can leverage AI to help generate that code or generate that low code to help generate that code or generate that low code.

Fatimah Abbouchi 39:21

I also heard recently that one of the other ideas thinking about what you just said around like being really clear on like those guardrails of how you're using it, particularly in your company or in any company listening is like even using use cases, coming up with some use cases, so it's pretend scenarios that replicate what you're trying to do, but not actually using any real client data. So there's a lot of a way to go. What are you most excited about when it comes to AI, either on the software development side or for your customers?

Martin Cooperwaite 39:56

Yeah, I think the thing I'm most excited about is the the biggest issue with software development is the services cost and the time it takes. And because, even if the ROI model that you have is so, for example, say you were doing a software project and that software project was going to cost you $500,000, but as an organisation, and let's say it was going to take you six months and as an organisation, you said, right, well, that's okay, because the ROI we expect from that spend, we expect to make $5 million, you know, from that 500K investment. So it makes sense. So, even if you can afford the 500K, the challenge you have is you're waiting six months before you can start realising that ROI.

Martin Cooperwaite 40:45

Now, what AI is going to enable is, you know, in my opinion and the stuff that we're seeing and it's changing really rapidly is that that six-month project will be a one-month project and instead of you know, but people go, do you have a lot less people?

Martin Cooperwaite 41:05

No, you don't. You actually have, we believe you have the same people with the same skills across when you build an agile team. That won't change. It's just that you have so much more productivity within each sprint so you can generate something amazing in two sprints right right in a month, or maybe three sprints over six weeks as opposed to say six months, but you still need the same people with the same skills to make sure that all of those, that human aspect, is still there. As soon as you start abdicating and saying, oh ai, please build me software that does things, and you, you take the human out of the loop, then that's where not just huge risk is introduced, but just misalignment from the vision, from what you're wanting to do, because ultimately we're trying to serve us as humans serve other humans, and it's a fundamental human activity. So as soon as you take the human out of the loop, I think there'll be big issues there.

Fatimah Abbouchi 41:55

It's a good call. And it also relates to project management in general, because I've had comments made by people I know about oh, ai is going to take your job as a project manager and really, when you think about it, the soft skills required in project management in general is the thing that AI can't replace. And the other thing that I think is really relevant for people as well is that AI needs the context in order for it to do what it needs to do. So, to your point, you probably do need, you know, input from the finance, smes or the. You know all the different skills in the business, but then also in the actual agile squads as well.

Fatimah Abbouchi 42:31

So, yeah, I think it's a good call. I do think there is a lot, like you said earlier, that's still unknown and a lot to learn still, but it's good to see that there is definitely some opportunities there and I don't think it's slowing down anytime soon. I can't believe the pace at which AI is growing. The the case in point for me is seeing how every second product now that is in the market, good or bad, just has the words AI in front of it and I generate and they might not even be really any good, but you're just putting AI and expecting that.

Fatimah Abbouchi 43:01

That means you know they're going to sell more, more licenses or something oh it's, it's seriously.

Martin Cooperwaite 43:06

It makes me cringe because a lot of these I would say the vast majority they put the word AI on there. So it would be like oh, I've got an Excel spreadsheet that calculates a formula and adds that cell to that cell. Let's call it AI. Like it's not AI at all, like it's just a calculation 100%.

Martin Cooperwaite 43:22

Yeah, it's just oh, it's, and then yeah. And then the other issue is all of this garbage that's been generated by AI as, like you know, marketing outreach and you know like, where's like, people are using AI to build content that they're not even writing and all the authenticity just gets lost. It's just yeah. Anyway, that's a side issue and a bugbear of mine, but anyway, I feel your pain.

Fatimah Abbouchi 43:49

On the other side, being in the project management and project management office space, I'm seeing PPM or project portfolio management tools for those listening that are just all of a sudden. Now they've got AI built into them and it's been a click of a finger. And, to your point, they're probably just introducing some automation or something like that. Yeah, yeah, that's finger. And to your point, they're probably just introducing some automation or something like that.

Martin Cooperwaite 44:09

Yeah, yeah, that's right.

Fatimah Abbouchi 44:10

And the content side. You're right. I think the challenges with the content side will come to face when you know if you're following a company that's putting out all their content that's generated, and then you meet them in person, they're not going to be able to sell you on what it is that they're trying to provide, because they probably don't know, because it's all been generated. So it's just about working through that, I think.

Fatimah Abbouchi 44:30

But yeah, it's definitely an interesting time, very interesting time yeah speaking of interesting times, so obviously you've got a lot um that you've achieved so far in the business and and this, all these new and exciting things that are happening what are what sort of future goals or projects? Is there anything you can share about us, either in software development in general, beyond ai or in kyandra, that you're excited about or that you know is, yeah, is on the horizon?

Innovative Projects and Financial Insights

Martin Cooperwaite 44:57

yeah. So, um, yeah, the main things. So, as a general concept, as I said before, um ai to drive uh, much like so, software projects that cost a lot less, uh and and reach their roi as, or at least are at their launch point, um to then start giving the roi that the cut the client um is doing it for in the first place, um will be a mass. I'm really excited about that and there'll be a massive change because for us you know like, for example, you know, for us, as much as we might like a 500 or a million dollar project, if those projects were 100 grand, we would certainly sell way more of them. You know what I mean. So it makes it much more accessible.

Martin Cooperwaite 45:41

But as far as the actual projects go, we've um, we've done, and in particular we're using low code. We've done some really significant health projects. So you know, we've implemented voluntary assisted dying in quite a few states in Australia. That's one we're really really proud of. We have done, we've done a lot of work in sort of the disability space. So we worked, worked with the dylan alcott and built the field, which is a jobs platform for people with disabilities. So, um, and we hope to do a lot more there as well. Uh, that's also something that we have there. So, I'd say, moving forward. Yeah, it's um some big, significant health projects that we we can't talk about on this call, but they're in the pipeline. And then also um further disability, you know, working with, hopefully with GetSkilledAccess and Dylan and his team there.

Martin Cooperwaite 46:33

But then the other one is that we've really seen and this is where a lot of there is to be blunt for nerds like us the fun stuff is in financial services, because they've got the drive and the I mean, apart from the funds to back it up, but they've also got the drive for innovation. And you know that's the playground where we're seeing the most exciting and bold use of AI. And I mean we built an insurance underwriting platform and, in its first year of operation, delivered 13 times more business for the company, or at least it enabled that. Sorry, I can't say that the platform did it solo, but it enabled 30 times more business for the insurance owner. So now, that was in 2019, 2020, I think from memory around then. But now with AI, you're talking thousands of percent in gains, uh, and and financial services are all over it, and so there, that's a big area for us. Now we're doing a lot of work there, which is really exciting because there's a lot of fun projects there, you know, um.

Fatimah Abbouchi 47:40

So yeah, it's the balance of, I say, health and financial services and disability it's very um, it's very rewarding when you get to work, particularly, like you said, in the health space. The opportunity to do some of those projects that you can then see tangible outcomes and benefits for people is, I think, amazing. The banking and financial services space is one that I'm super passionate about. Been doing that for about 10 years and I was actually in an event recently. It was like the FinTech Australia event and for the first time ever I'd seen them doing a reverse banking pitch. So, instead of businesses pitching to the banks, two of the banks, two of the big banks were pitching to the audience and a number of startup organizations. They had the opportunity to listen in and then effectively put forward some solutions.

Martin Cooperwaite 48:26

Oh, wow.

Fatimah Abbouchi 48:28

And if their solution sort of met the needs of the bank, they were invited to come forward and potentially then be funded to deliver on that. So I thought that was really interesting. One thing I wanted to just ask from a selfish perspective as a small business sometimes we have these crazy ideas and you know, these days, particularly if you're not using tech for everything, you're sort of out of touch. But if you've got a really good idea and you think it's, you know, great, what advice would you give to someone who is, you know, bootstrapped, doesn't have much funding, but has an idea or thinks it's a great idea? What would you recommend they do, um, in order to figure out whether the idea is worth pursuing? Have you got any advice for people like me?

Martin Cooperwaite 49:12

right, okay, all right, um, yeah, I think what one of the um? One of the things I've learned along the way is to really almost yeah, really play devil's advocate and torture, for want of a better phrase. You know how much is there really a market for what you want to offer, right, and how saturated is that? So, and then what I would say is so, when you have those assumptions, think about who some of your target customers might be and ask them, you would say I'm looking at doing this, would you buy it? And we've been. You know, we've seen clients of ours who have built successful startups and that is, they said would you pay? You know, just, whatever it is arbitrary, you know, would you pay 5K, would you pay 20K? Said would you pay? Um, you know, just, whatever it is arbitrary, you know, would you pay 5k, would you pay 20k, would you pay 100k for this? You know you. You, you ask them and you just say you know, and, and that could be really, really valuable from that perspective. Then, after that, um, you then have various options about how you might progress, and I'd say I mean the way we work, for example, is that when we talk to people even though I've been giving you hypothetical examples around fairly big budget scenarios. They were just for the purpose of our conversation, but we do lots of work at all scales right, and so the way we work is that we do. We build a no cost proof of concept upfront, and any work we do would have 24 months warranty. So the idea for us it's about showing skin in the game. But for someone like yourself or with an idea you could, that could help you formulate or see how that might come together and so, uh, you know we work that way and so we obviously would welcome anyone to reach out. Um, uh, because, yeah, if we do, if we kind of discuss it and it makes sense and we build a proof of concept, that's no risk, apart from a bit of time that you injected into it because you know you would own that IP. You know that's not a concern there either.

Martin Cooperwaite 51:18

But yeah, if you've tortured the idea and you've asked some of your customers, from that perspective, the benefit nowadays is that you can build some pretty compelling stuff there. I mean, there are so many software as a service tools as well that you can adapt and use in your context, and sometimes you just need to think a little bit kind of um outside the box, for want of a better phrase. I don't mean to be cliched, but, like, a lot of people are using, you know, shopping cart and or spot or shopify or other bits and pieces to sell all kinds of things in very different contexts, and sometimes you can just sort of tweak the content on those sites and you can be amazed at what you can use to offer it. But, yeah, um, it would obviously depend on the context. But um, yeah, just I'd say, whether it's us or any other organization, there's a lot of the.

Martin Cooperwaite 52:05

I think the market shifted a lot and perhaps, you know, maybe 10 years ago, you'd ring up and then someone would be like, well, you've got to pay for a, you know, some strategic consulting. For me to talk to you, almost everyone that I know we're the same. Everyone else that I'm aware of in our industry as well is the same. They're happy to give a lot of free advice. I think the Melbourne, orbourne or australian network is is relatively small and people remember each other and appreciate that stuff and I think people are willing to, you know, give a bit of advice there. So I'd say, just ask as well, ask, ask a few people and you might be surprised the amount you can learn it, um, without actually having to pay for it um, very sound advice and I'm definitely taking it.

Fatimah Abbouchi 52:46

I think you're right. If you have an idea same with entrepreneurship in general sometimes you have an idea for a business and you don't spend any time going out there and having a look at what exists. Maybe you can do it better, but maybe not and then you invest all this time setting up a business or a side hustle or a shop or whatever it is that you're doing, and then only to realise actually it already exists in five other places. So I think definitely that market research is key. That's really good, Very great advice. We're almost at the end of our call today. Is there anything else, Martin, that you would like to share with our listeners? A call to action, a piece of advice or a question to ponder?

Leveraging AI for Business Growth

Martin Cooperwaite 53:23

Yeah, I guess don't be terrified of ai, um, and keep that mindset of how can I use this to make me supercharged, not will it replace me. So one of the biggest advancements, uh, which is which we're observing now is and I don't know if you've played with it, but the latest, I think it's chat GPT for one or something I might have that wrong, sorry, don't have it in front of me but the fact that you can engage with it conversationally. And so, for example, we did a test and so we had it there, like on the phone, and we said you know, we're thinking about giving a tweak to our brand and you know we wanted to incorporate much more emphasis on low-code and AI. You know, because that's really what we're doing now predominantly, it's like 80% of our work and it was like, okay, well, look, that's quite interesting and have you considered this and this and this? And it's amazing, conversationally, right, and then people might be really intimidated by that, but it's like, no, how can I? You know, people are going to use chat, jpt and or another ai platform and they're going to have it contribute in a meeting, but just treat it as another, a great resource. You're still leading and driving the outcome you want. Just use it as a supercharged, awesome employee, an awesome assistant for you. So I really, really, really urge people to do that, because that's what we're doing and and and you know we don't carry those same fears.

Martin Cooperwaite 54:53

And then the other one would be um, if you're thinking about doing sort of any kind of tech innovation, um, and never lose sight of the roi that, like, make sure you've got that. That. That's kind of really crystallized, because there's a lot of people who spend a lot of money building something and they never get an ROI or they never reach it. And the other one is really, think closely at the time it's going to take you to reach that ROI. So if you're looking at two engagements, you know two projects and one was going to cost you a million dollars, but take two years, and one was going to cost you two million dollars, but take two months um, what's your roi? Because, like, you might spend more money up front, but then you start reaching your, you get to, you get to realize your roi do. If you realize it much faster, then it's actually better to spend the higher amount, and obviously that applies to orders of magnitude less money as well. It could be 20k versus 200k.

Martin Cooperwaite 55:50

But a lot of people that we find when we talk to them about the idea of a project is they get too bogged down. I mean, fair enough, you obviously have to afford the cost, but they get bogged down on the cost. But they don't spend enough analysis and looking at the return and the timing of that return. Because if the timing of that return delivers you 20 times more business than you would have gotten, you get it two months later. It's a no-brainer to proceed. So it's just something I would say for people to keep in mind.

Fatimah Abbouchi 56:14

Yeah, really sound advice. I think you're right and, like you said, I think, don't be terrified with AI, and not forgetting ROI. Both have eyes in it. But, yes, no 100 great advice. Um, I think that all of the things you've shared today been extremely helpful and insightful. I'm sure we could have continued talking. I say that to everyone because I just love these conversations. If people want to connect with you, um, where's the best place for them to find you?

Martin Cooperwaite 56:39

uh, best place would be, I'd say, our website. So, uh, kyandracomau uh, and you can see, oh there, how it's spelled on my yeah, there, we go on the video in the show notes.

Martin Cooperwaite 56:51

Yeah, there we go. Uh, that's the best thing you know through that process. Um, uh, and if anyone had anything they wanted to email me directly and ask question of my email. I'm going to give you the short version, which will be in the show notes, but basically the short version is martin at kyandracom. So I've actually also got a longer email address, but that's my shortcut one, so pop that in the notes too. And yeah, if anyone has liked the ideas that you mentioned or thoughts and things, no obligation chat, and even if we can't help, we might be able to say, yeah, but you should talk to this person, you know, and that happens a lot, um, so yeah, happy to happy to talk to anyone, doesn't matter how, how big or small, or progressed or not progressed.

Fatimah Abbouchi 57:37

um, yeah, the idea, um the idea conversation that we had um before we connected today was very valuable. So I highly recommend if anyone is listening and thinks they have a crazy idea or wants some advice, I highly recommend them to reach out to you, and now you've given your email publicly, I'm sure some of them will.

Martin Cooperwaite 57:54

Yeah, I won't get any spam either. That's right, no, of course not.

Fatimah Abbouchi 57:57

No spam at all, no phishing emails, nothing like that.

Martin Cooperwaite 58:00

Exactly, that's right.

Fatimah Abbouchi 58:01

Thank you so much. It's been an absolute pleasure having you. You and I look forward to ongoing conversations.

Martin Cooperwaite 58:06

Yeah, great Thanks. I really appreciate the opportunity to talk today.

Fatimah Abbouchi 58:09

Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. Please share this with someone or rate it if you enjoyed it. Don't forget to follow us on social media and to stay up to date with all things Agile ideas, go to our website, wwwagilemanagementofficecom. I hope you've been able to learn, feel or be inspired today. Until next time, what's your agile idea?