About Ekipa

The 1 Million Mission

We’re on a journey to touch 1,000,000 people with the agile ‘spark’
0
People Sparked

Our Story

We’re on a journey to touch 1,000,000 people with the agile ‘spark’.

Ekipa Consultancy brings the ‘Agile spark’ to Singapore’s business ecosystem.

We spark 3 things:

  • Self-organisation. Everyone knows how to set the right priorities and can work without a boss. We coach people to get there
  • Entrepreneurship. Fixing stuff, making the world a better place, breaking rules, doing what nobody else is doing. That’s what we do and teach.
  • A balanced workplace. We set high standards, deliver quality and push ourselves. And we also value working smarter, not harder. Let others say they’re busy.

Ekipa is a leading end-to-end Agile Innovation Consultancy. We exist to help our clients adopt agile practices and new ways of working, leading to better business outcomes for them, and we also help them to innovate, and create a sense of entrepreneurism with their organisational cultures.

Ekipa’s team, located across the South-East Asian region, is multi-disciplinary and diverse.

We believe today’s value creation is about breaking the rules of the game. Technology enables startups to disrupt any industry. Young entrepreneurial people see opportunities and go out to realize them. Enterprises have all the money, resources and market to do the same. Our programs foster intrapreneurs to go out and launch the winning products of the future inside their enterprises.

Learn more about how we work in Agile ways ourselves – Ekipa Reinvented

ekipa lean agile startup malaysia

Ekipa DNA

The DNA of Ekipa is built on the following characteristics:

To get the right co-workers on board, We need a strong DNA. This helps us to decide who ‘fits’ and who needs support on what. We ensure that anyone who joins our team matches with this DNA. And we make it our daily responsibility to develop this DNA within ourselves and our co-workers

lean startup methodology ekipa dna

Ekipa Reinvented

The Story

Ekipa is a 100% self managed organisation without any hierarchy. EVERYBODY IS AN OWNER and everybody shares in our success and profits. Everybody works on the things they want to contribute and we do not have fixed job descriptions. We collaborate with our customers to HELP them develop ENTREPRENEURSHIP and INNOVATION in their organisations. Together, we create the company we want Ekipa to be and we create better lives for ourselves and the people we serve. We’re co-workers.

Co-worker Assumptions

  • People are systematically considered to be good (reliable, self-motivated, trustworthy, intelligent).
  • We’re all creative, thoughtful, trustworthy adults, capable of making important decisions;
  • We’re all accountable and responsible for our decisions and actions. INTEGRITY: our word is our bond.
  • People are fallible, we make mistakes.
  • We want to use our talents and skills to make a positive contribution to the organization and the world.
  • We bring positivity, play, JOY and APPRECIATION to our workplace.
  • All business information is open to all.
  • Every one of us is able to handle difficult and sensitive news.
  • We believe in the power of collective intelligence. Nobody is as smart as everybody. Therefore all decisions will be made with the “advice process“.
    • We relate to one another with an assumption of positive intent.
    • Until we are proven wrong, trusting co-workers is our default means of engagement.
    • Freedom and accountability are two sides of the same coin.
    • We each have full responsibility for the organization.
    • If we sense that something needs to happen, we have a duty to address it.
    • It’s not acceptable to limit our concern to the remit of roles.
    • Everyone must be comfortable with holding others accountable to their commitments through feedback and respectful confrontation.

    Growth and Learning

    • Everything that we do for the first time in Ekipa is an experiment, and all experiments provide data that we can use to improve ourselves and our organisation.
    • Every experiment that we conduct will bring its own unique set of challenges and opportunities. These challenges are a chance for us to learn and grow.
    • In taking on these challenges, there is a possibility that we will not succeed.
    • Rather than labeling this as failure, we will discuss the situation openly, identify the lessons that can be learned, and invite feedback from each other, in order to continuously improve ourselves and our team.
    Co-workers are responsible for their own learning; you decide what training, books or other forms you need to buy; if needed, use the advice process to decide. You are also responsible for spending your time wisely; making learning a (visible) part of your weekly goals is appreciated. It’s a good practice to have a monthly or quarterly sharing session in which you share what you have learned with your co-workers. Time is all we have in life. We aim to be as productive as possible while we work. We recognize that the only thing that counts is outcomes. We don’t get to work because we must work 9-5. We get to work to pursue our goals. One of the most important learning curves is becoming more effective, working on things that have the biggest impact on the outcomes. Many books and training have been developed about this topic.

    Roles; no Hierarchy, no Job Descriptions

    There is no formal hierarchy, we abandon the traditional system. There are no bosses to turn to. Teams decide what they focus on, how they achieve outcomes and how they solve problems.
    We have no job descriptions. Every co-worker is free to create, modify or remove roles. If you think something adds value to your team’s purpose, you own it and move it forward. Once a month, we organize an overall team retrospective. During this event, the teams discuss the current roles and propose additions or modifications. Each co-worker is responsible to clearly state the roles taken and make this visible in the roles document.

    Decision Making

    If you recognize a decision has to be made, you own that decision. We assume you can make most of the decisions by yourself. If you need help of other co-workers, ask them for advice, make your decision and move on.
    There are a number of steps in the advice process:
    1. Someone notices a problem or opportunity and takes the initiative, or alerts someone better placed to do so.
    2. Prior to a proposal, the decision-maker may seek input to sound out perspectives before proposing action.
    3. The initiator makes a proposal and seeks advice from those affected or those with expertise.
    4. Taking this advice into account, the decision-maker decides on an action and informs those who have given advice.

    If the decision maker can’t reach a decision on his own to resolve important issues, a team meeting is organized with the following process:

    1. Team appoints facilitator
    2. Agenda and topics selected based on current issues
    3. Proposals for resolution are shared
    4. Review, improve and refine proposals
    5. Group makes a decision. Not consensus. Accepted is solution without anyone having a principled objection.
    • The facilitator can’t make any statement suggestions or decision.
    • You can’t veto a solution just because you think another (or your own) solution is better.
    • The solution can be revisited at any point if new information is available.
    • If the team gets stuck, you can ask for an external facilitator

    Meeting Rhythm

    To execute work, team(s) hold regular alignment meetings. All meetings are MANDATORY; it’s beneficial for team alignment. We have found scrum to work well. In Scrum, we have the following meetings:

    typically monday morning to decide what will be done during the week. Each team member creates or ‘takes’ tickets (from a Trello board).
    every day, we do a 5-15 minute skype call to align on 3 questions: what have you done yesterday, what are you working on today, do you have any ‘stucks’?
    typically on friday afternoon; team members share what they have accomplished during the week
    after the demo, people share what they believe went well or could be improved in the teamwork, process.
    On a monthly basis, teams hold an overall retrospective in which they discuss what they can improve as a team. In this meeting, team members add / modify / remove roles.

    Conflict Resolution

    • It’s impossible to change other people. We can only change ourselves.
    • We take ownership for our thoughts, beliefs, words and actions.
    • We don’t spread rumors. We don’t talk behind someone’s back.
    • We resolve disagreement one-on-one and don’t drag other people into the problem.
    • We don’t blame others. When we feel like blaming, we take it as an invitation to reflect on how we might be part of the problem (and the solution).

    If two co-workers have a conflict, there is nobody but yourselves to resolve the conflict. To reach a resolution, the following CONFLICT RESOLUTION PROCESS is followed:

    1. the two co-workers sit together, discuss the conflict and try to find a resolution.
    2. if that doesn’t work, you seek advice from 1 trusted colleague
    3. if that doesn’t work, they elect a panel to help resolve it
    4. the CEO is asked to resolve it

    In all cases, you are expected to keep the information to yourselves and not seek others to be on your side. Nobody should spread the information.

    If you find it hard to open up to someone you have a conflict with, use the following three topics in your conversation with the person:

    1. Here is how I feel…
    2. Here is what I need…
    3. What do you need?