I set up Axelisys in 2011, with the aim of bringing world leading innovative systems engineering and consultancy to companies around the UK and since then, the world.
Whether I like it or not, what has become clear over the last 3 years or so, is how different we are from the norm.
I made a very conscious decision a few years ago to move away from traditional consultancy and company models and focus on manifesting Dee Hock’s seemingly mythical “chaordic organisation”. The fundamental concepts have been adopted and appreciated by many organisations who cite and use my work in this space, including those I’ve been a part of building.
I’ve since discovered the vast majority of the UK market, in almost all sectors, simply isn’t ready for that level of innovation. Yet, most have the desire to get there, cite all the right drivers and make all the right noises, but are so entrenched in existing, often dysfunctional ways of working, it’s too easy for them to revert to type if they have not been given the space to adapt and improve.
Also, many miss the biggest key barriers to engaging a supplier who can help. They attempt to use traditional, staid procurement or management practises to engage the most truly innovative suppliers. These are mutual anathema and requires brand new ways of contracting, procuring services, engaging suppliers and levels of transparency most of the industry simply doesn’t have. The culture of most organisations still contain significant, toxic levels of organisational politics. Something I personally, am violently allergic to.
In that time, we have identified some 5 principles we’ve evolved to underpin the organisation.
1. Don’t Sell Everything to Everyone
We don’t really believe in a one-size-fits-all model of engagement or work. All companies are different and any one of competition, legislation, market dynamic and time can change the important value chains, processes, people and cultures within them. It is precisely the latter that necessitates continuous improvement and we live by that.
It is because companies are different that we don’t carry a significant amount of standard “collateral” in the same way other consultancies do. To do that risks bringing the wrong piece of the jigsaw to the party and as we see time and time again, this sets the programme up for contractual failure right from the start.
In 2013, as the gig economy started to rise in popularity, I made the decision to shift away from traditional employment to explore gig options. It was new and innovative. Nobody was clear on how this could support a workforce. We needed to find out. I even spent a bit of time on there myself, to understand as much as I can about the experience, how it works and what it feels like as a worker and as a client, to understand if, when and how best to use the resources.
The results were hit and miss. Some platforms such as ELance or Freelancers, started off reasonable, then descended into a race to the bottom. In some cases, coupling you with some abhorrent set of exploitative ‘customers’ who never had any intention of paying you or exploited your efforts to attempt to get free work.
We attempt to be as ethical as we can be when participating with the community. Especially in gig work. A happy and safe community is a productive community. Perhaps after my own heart, or maybe due to my many years in charity organisations, we make the point of taking a stand against poor practise and unjustifiable risk but do so in the spirit of protecting other gig economy workers and the wider community at large. This includes our workers and associates. The same way Uber allow drivers to review customers for the benefit of other drivers.
This approach isn’t for a lot of people or companies. Passionate debates can be common and a client’s organisational politics can be so entrenched that good practise is in the small minority and thus, never gets a look in. Yet, we have to identify it and present it if the client is to improve. Especially where it directly contravenes their own policies, or worse, the law.
I and Axelisys, learnt some important lessons. This has led us to our desire to work with great staff and great customers, who grok the need to continually innovate within their own and mutual spaces.
2. Flexibility for your Workforce
In addition, this fits with our wider ethos of allowing people to work anywhere, on anything, in any way they choose, on any amount of work and can continue to do so as long as it passes acceptance criteria.
In our development work, we found that it’s safest for everyone to have an entirely freelance or contractor development base. This is mainly due to the way we pay per ticket and in my experience, freelancers have an easier time understanding that model than other forms of engagement.
This model allows folk to work the whole of their engagement wherever they like. So if a ticket is worth £1,500 say, and they work 4 of those in a week to the sufficient standard, it’s £6,000 regardless of whether it’s completed in 2 days or 5 days. Another person can work just the one over two weeks, due to other commitments or other work. They would get the equivalent of £750 a week. This allows folk who may already have work or perhaps are stay at home parents, to work with us around their own commitments. We certainly try not to force people to do anything but similarly, trust and empower them to get on with it.
This is the crucial reason we work differently to other companies. Everyone is ideally T-skilled enough to be able to pick up something in the chain, just like agile developers can pick up some BA or QA work and vice versa. We depend on that, since we don’t run an organogram in the same way as other companies. We encourage teams to run as a graph that continually adapts to the supply of work, workers to demand.
3. Don’t “Auction” Work
We set our ticket price based on several factors (yes, there is an algorithm and we are continually optimising it). This means we set the price based on the value of the engagement and open it up to developers anywhere in the world accounting for any legislation we have to consider, such as data protection, intellectual property or financial services.
Whether you are working in the UK, the USA, India, Canada, Easter Europe or China, it is one price. We believe in fairness and aren’t looking for suppliers to bid or compete against each other and want to encourage the extra productivity of local suppliers too, who may fear the effects of remote, globalised services.
Local suppliers do have a natural advantage with faster engagement. But remember, we pay by the ticket. Hence, local suppliers may develop systems, and thus, run through tickets faster. For them, earning more ‘per day’ when compared to an equivalent UK day-rate. That again, means the work they take on and the rate at which they earn, is up to them. Contrary to expectations, we’ve found that results in a self-optimising process.
4. Find Good People & Get-Out of Their Way!
We are always on the lookout for good folk to sign up. We expect them to form their own clusters or mobs around the work and I don’t really care how that is done, as long as the resulting team can optimise their structures to get better in the context of the work they do. After all, the faster the work is done to standard, the more money they will naturally get in a certain time.
We’ve found folk tend to do well if they are:
- Tech and analytically Smart
- Data-drive Decisions
- Respectfully challenging — constructive critique is needed and appreciated everywhere
- Collaborative
- Introspective and extrospective
- Self-starters
- Trustworthy
- Used to delivering with a lot of trusted freedom
- Comfortable in Agile & Lean Development — Especially using consumer driven contracts, BDD, TDD, mock-ups etc. but possessing a wide repertoire of experience across agile and heavy methods
- Self-optimising
- Can comfortably interact with other devs anywhere
- Principled
5. Bravery in Business
Our company strives to make clients the best they can be. Sometimes, this can involve pushing companies and their staff beyond their comfort zone or helping nurture upcoming talent through challenging engagements.
During consultancy engagements, we challenge customers’ to do a lot to improve their organisation. Some customers aren’t ready for that and we try to let them know as early as possible, with suggestions for what they might like to do first, before coming back to us once they have become a little more effective, or nurtured a safe, adaptive culture. Both protecting their investment and their time.
It has traditionally been considered unprofessional to “call out” customers and it is not something I or we take lightly. Many things can happen during engagements which are simple misunderstandings or can be fixed when identified. However, what we definitely know, is the customer isn’t always right and has seen us disengage with public procurement where it is clear the buyer is acting against their organisation’s best interests. Especially with public money. An all-too-frequent occurrence I’m sad to say.
This stance happens to be best practise in procurement, which is rarely enacted by other suppliers who always chase the money. Especially those who then find themselves in dispute. We have withdrawn from many Public Sector ITT responses precisely because it is clear that public customers are acting against their own best interests or spending public money on something they simply don’t need to buy.
Yet, we certainly try to be kind with it. If we withdraw for this reason, we try to give feedback on why. It is cheaper and quicker for us to do that, than write 60+ pages of bid documents for something we know the customer doesn’t need, or are inadequately conveying. For example, they still struggle with agile story writing yet want an agile supplier. If we can’t see the space for us to place a BA or training in the ITT to help them along, then we’d rather step out, since it is likely to be a problematic engagement.
Summary
With Axelisys, I try to encourage the striking of the delicate balance of casual and professional culture as much as I can. We are passionate about honesty and integrity. I expect that from our workforce and often our clients. In return, we offer a pretty unique opportunity to work with, and shape, probably one of the most dynamic, “structureless” organisations in the world. Something other companies strive to become or look up to.
Sometimes we have to say to clients that our model isn’t appropriate for them or perhaps their choice of direction may not be in their own best interests. Yet, we are one of the best companies to advise them on the direction they really should take. Whether by making better use of cloud services, building new, effective working practise, streamlining services, leaving cost accounting models, adopting value-accounting models, carrying out research and development or helping drive decisions with data, companies must continually adapt to their markets and as partners who live and breathe that adaptation, it is a journey we can take customers through, together.
Axelisys are constantly on the lookout for good people. If you’re interested in joining the company’s network, get in touch at jobs@axelisys.co.uk with something you’d like to show us and we’ll get back to you (There is a sting for agencies. No Agencies please). Note, we operate a blind recruitment policy. Candidate details are removed from CVs or other submissions as much as possible before hiring staff see them. Screeners are asked anonymously, then it’s straight to a paid ticket. Deliver that well, you get another.
