Aanu Gopald

Transcript: 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  00:46

Who is Aanu Gopald?

Aanu Gopald  00:53

Wow. That’s actually a very good question. Who is Aanu Gopald? I’m a woman of many parts, that’s what I call it myself. I’m a Family woman, I’ve got three lovely, beautiful kids and I’m also a wife with a very supportive husband that keeps the home front when I’m in Africa. Aanu Gopald is also a dreamer. I’m so passionate about human capacity developments and I also believe that anyone can achieve whatever they set their mind to do to become who they want to be and do whatever they want to do, especially even in an uncomfortable conditions or situations especially, if you know a lot of Africa. Aanu Gopald is also a torch bearer, I move to the world in search of other people to light up especially women. I am so passionate about women maybe because I’m also a woman and my soul also draws strength from serving others and lifting them up. As a dreamer, I just want to touch lives and that’s actually the theme of Africa Agility Foundation, “touching life, one breath at a time”.

I’m also a chain catalyst and I truly believe in people, I’m very altruistic so the happiness of others actually influences my happiness. What gives me joy and fulfillment is when I see others, especially those that are my mentors, those that I have touched, achieving their goals, their dreams in life. Another part to Aanu Gopald is I’m a philanthropies, I continuously seek to impact lives in the world around me. My family and I do a lot for orphanage homes in Africa, especially in Nigeria in rural areas. Africa Agility Foundation, myself and my team, we run free programs for kids and youth in Africa, Nigeria, in partnership with Sudan NextGen led by Sally Elatta, we are moving to Sudan, also Kenya and Ghana to do so many amazing things to improve quality of lives and also reduce poverty and also employment for youth in Africa. Yeah, thank you. Other side of Aanu that most people know is I’m a business agility coach, a trainer, facilitator, a speaker and everything about agile agility, that’s another side of Aanu.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  03:54

That’s awesome. That’s inspirational too. I feel a little bit of guilt. Like, I came from another country that’s formerly Yugoslavia, Bosnian specifically and I’ve tried to help and justify in my own ways that help but I think you’re inspiring me in the sense of what you’re doing. It tells me that I should be doing more to help people where I’m from, and contribute more. Thank you for doing that. At least that has sparked a little bit more fire, doing a little bit and giving more back where I’m from. And you were just recently in Nigeria for the Lagos girls tech bootcamp that you organized. How did that go?

Aanu Gopald  04:47

It’s was revelational for me, it was mind blowing, insightful. It was a new experience for me because the first one we did last year COVID happened so I joined them virtually via zoom and although we don’t really have much COVID cases in Nigeria,  I don’t know the magic that happened, they were able to contain it. They had it in person but being there physically was a new experience for me, with the two weeks plus I was in Nigeria. What made it revelational was, I’ve come to understand that the young people, not just in Africa, but every parts of the world have the power to bring about the much needed change, especially when they have the right vision, the mastery and also a sense of purpose. I saw 100 determined, audacious, courageous and resilient female youths despite all odds against them, some of them are undergraduates, majority of them are graduates with no job, the unemployment rate is very high in that parts of the world. They believed in their dreams, they have passion for tech although they didn’t study tech in school and they worked so hard during those three weeks to bring that dream to reality. So it was mind blowing and during that three weeks bootcamp, they were trained in the field of artificial intelligence, machine learning, web development, data science UI/UX, and also two days certified master class, thanks to Scrum Alliance for that, and Joseph Farewell for facilitating it, it was free for the girls.

The highlights of the Bootcamp and this is where the magic happened, or miracle, whatever metaphor that we want to call it. For those two days, they use scrum, doing daily scrum to develop d2 solutions to solve the top three complex challenge that we have in Lagos, Nigeria. Lagos State is the most populous and the most tribal state in Africa. So imagine, they walked into the bootcamp with no prior experience in those seats filled and they did magic in two days, daily scrum that was like, wow, miracle happening in Lagos. Where the moments of humility comes for me, and also stepped in for me, and also deep appreciation for the girls and their talents was, the state governor was at the grand finale with his cabinet members and some of the MDs of corporations, he applauded the girls of their dedication, their creativity. When they were doing the live demo of the three d2 solutions across (inaudible 8:41), waste management and traffic management, he said, he’s been thinking about this with his team, his cabinet members in the last two and half years, this is a problem, we need to fix it, we need to do something about it and what they’ve been doing is talking about it but in two days, you girls, were not like us. He actually used the word you ladies are smarter than us, you solved our problem in two days. What we’ve not been able to do in two and half years in his position. It was revolutionary, I was humbled.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  09:28

What’s going through my head now is more like just how we can enable as a community of trainers and coaches, so those girls now have some experience or they’ve been introduced similar like, maybe we can go back to how you were introduced to Agile and Scrum, but now they can become change agents in the most populous part of the Africa and be those change agents that you are and they can inspire others in a complex world, especially in areas like Africa, not just Africa, different parts of the world where we need more people to embrace empiricism, embrace what we talked about with technology and just solve these problems. What did the girls say? Do you have any stories from them sharing their takeaways with you how they were touched and influenced? 

Aanu Gopald  10:46

Well, all the stories are on Africa Agility social media platforms, the girls were very appreciative of the opportunity, because it’s so expensive to run programs like this and not having the financial support makes it difficult sometimes. The fact that there is an organization that cares so much about them, that cares so much about their development, their growth, and also a path that can create opportunities, especially job and entrepreneurship opportunities for them was what they were looking for and Africa agility Foundation gave them that opportunity, opened that door for them. A good example was one of the girls that came for the bootcamp last year she spoke to her boss, she was earning less than $100 per month, the currency has changed, is really poor and the boss said, sorry, whatever you want to go and learn has nothing to do with what we do in our organization and she resigned. I love dreamers, I love go-getters, she resigned, she left the job.

And it’s not really easy to get jobs in Africa, if you have one hold on tight to it, it doesn’t matter even if the pay is not that good because you need to take care for yourself, take care of your family and two weeks into the bootcamp, she actually shared what she has learnt, what she has built on social media and before the end of the bootcamp she made times five of what she used to make when she was working in that company. And there are so many testimonials like that, even at the grand finale, five of the girls got employment with an aviation company in Nigeria (inaudible 12:58), the MD was there and he saw the innovation the girls created and like, Oh, come on some of you ladies. And right now I was told on Saturday, every Saturday, there’s a program that happens like a form of mentorship for the girls. And the MD of a company came to speak to the ladies. I had 10 of them on the spot. Tthat’s the impacts.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  13:31

But you’re also creating platform. I think it’s impact but also having Scrum Alliance and having what you’re doing with the Agile Africa and Agile Africa Alliance, and helping bring people together, create platforms where people, could you maybe talk about that a little bit and bring some light to that because I think a lot of times, and for a lot of us, it’s where you create relationships, where you meet, others where you learn your thing. How’s Agile Africa and Agile Africa Alliance bringing people together and how is that helping with this broader movement of bringing or in the sense of exposing people to these agile methods of thinking and ways of working in Africa?

Aanu Gopald  14:24

So Agile Africa and Agile Africa Alliance started back in 2000 and towards the end of 2017, then kicked off the first quarter of 2018. We saw a gap and we saw a need and that is what actually birth the platform and that was before COVID, now that everything has gone virtual. The platform was for growing a community of diverse African professionals. One thing about Africans is we love education. Our parents will do anything even sell their houses, their cars, whatever they have to send us to school. The parts of the world that I came from first degrees is not good enough. The state I came from in Nigeria, it’s PhD but I had to tell my dad, sorry, the best you can get from me is master degree. I’m not going towards the route, education is very important, so we have a lot of educated professionals in Africa. 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  15:52

Is it just education, it seems expectations are high in general.

Aanu Gopald  15:58

The expectations are very high, there’s nothing like college fund, there’s no college debt. Expectations are very, very, very, very high. And the dream was like, agile is not that popular in Africa, what can you do to introduce this new way of working, this new way of thinking, everything around agility to Africa and that’s what birthed that platform and with this initiative, we are able to connect Africans with the global Agile community. The resources are mastering, bringing top leaders in the space to come and share their experiences, their wisdom, everything around agile innovation, professional coaching, personal development and branding. The goal, actually, is human capacity development and also to facilitate the needed transformation that will sustain Africa economic growth. That was the dream.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  17:12

So it’s much bigger. I mean, it’s bigger, it’s how do we,

Aanu Gopald  17:16

Yep, so what’s your question?

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  17:19

No. So it’s much bigger than just software. It’s much bigger. It has to do with the problems, real problems that people are facing. You mentioned Sally Elatta, who else in the community is contributing and to helping bring agile agility to end the mindset to people in Africa?

Aanu Gopald  17:50

Oh, there’re so many, there are a list of them.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  17:53

That’s great to hear. Maybe just to name the few, who are some of the ones that you’re closely working with and you feel deserve to be mentioned. 

Aanu Gopald  18:06

Well, everyone deserves to be mentioned. If I stay within the Scrum Alliance community, we have Joseph Farewell, we have Bob Galen, we have Sherry Silas, we have Michael de la Maza and I’m blanking on right now. Oh, MJ, I remember MJ talking about different types of teams. And we have also a lot of people outside, we have Luke Omar who is not really a Scrum Alliance person, he was actually our second speaker. We have my former boss at Toyota Nyjah Tolo, he actually graced the platform as our first speaker, so we have different people from different parts of the world that has supported this movement. And there are some other people that have supported us financially as well, especially bringing agility to Africa. The youth in Africa are agile, to be honest with you, we’ve gone through a lot of resilience and adaptation. In Africa, you have to quickly adapt, we are born agile in Africa, and we’ve received a lot of financial support, moral support from a lot of people from the Western world. So a great thanks to many, many, many of them.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  19:41

That is awesome. I think something resonated, saying we’re agile. When you grow up in a country or in a part of the world where there’s a lot of competition, I can only imagine in Lagos in Nigeria where it’s highly concentrated, especially in Lagos, probably similar to any big city, but it’s like you get to figure things out, nothing’s given to you, there’s so much competition and having experienced that, it’s demanding. There’s pressure, it’s not easy to grow up in a smaller town and I’ve experienced that too. As far as also motivationally, you can succeed so it motivates you, where you have a lot of people embracing that agility and empiricism and just trying to figure out and you’ll fail a lot, but you also learn a lot. It’s something that I’ve been thinking about, I still don’t know best way to express it, but it’s that environment, almost like a boiler pot type of environment where things are constantly blowing, it’s interesting. And there’s something to innovation, there’s something to learn in that type of environment where it forces you, you don’t have an option not to figure things out, nothing’s given.

Aanu Gopald  21:21

Nothing is given. There’s no privileges. You need to be agile to survive.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  21:30

Maybe we’ll come back to this topic, but there’s something there, it’s been kind of marinating in my head as far as what’s going on. You were the first black female African to achieve both certified team coach and certified enterprise coach through Scrum Alliance. Why was that important for you and for Scrum Alliance?

Aanu Gopald  21:55

Wow. Well, the importance of that for me wasn’t about the certification, but about making a difference in my community and the CTC, the CEC was just a confirmation of my accomplishments in the Agile coaching world. Throughout my career, and I’m sure you would have observed this as well, I’ve been to classes, trainings, workshops, local meetups conferences, and there were only a few people that looks like me. Few years ago, when I embarked on this journey of both certifications, we only have a few handful of black people on the Scrum Alliance guide level, we only have the Morrissey’s at the (inaudible 22:49) level. And I can’t even remember if there was any black person, at the CEC or CTC level at that point, to be honest, I can’t remember. But that was the motivation for me, I see a gap and this become a mission for me, a mission to help others that looks like me, other Africans to start this journey, to inspire them that it’s possible, it is doable. Of course, it’s a long journey with a lot of learning, with a lot of growth and the growth and the opportunity to improve myself personally, to be a better me and to be a better coach in order to serve my community and the organizations that I consult for was the motivation for me.

And right now with the other five black level guide, we are motivated, I mean  CAC certified agile coaches level guides at scrum Alliance, the six of those, we are motivated, we are starting a program in September and October to bring the African Americans and the African community together and support them on this journey, that we did it and we believe that you can do it and we are here to guide, to mentor, to support you in achieving your dream because this is a dream to many, many, many people. And also, the accomplishment  was a huge opportunity for me to be a role model, not just to Africans but also to women, minority women, that you know what, this is a path for you, not just an opportunity, this is something that you deserve and you can start this journey especially going through the process, the experience and I understood what it takes to become a CTC or a CAC level, supporting the women, the African male and female in this part of the town that I am and also in diaspora, you can achieve these two destinations, it belongs to you, it’s your right. That’s the word I’m looking for. It’s your rights.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  25:40

I agree. I was talking to both Bob Galen and Sherry Silas, diversity wise, from all perspective, but it’s also being able to bring different experiences of diversity to the guide level, and sometimes, I was joking around first then, I didn’t think about diversity like in my podcast in a sense. They started as, hey, I want to have these, it was mostly in my head, it was mostly these guys that I’ll have beers with and as I started enjoying the podcast more and more, I’m like, who else would I want to talk to, who else have I spoken before and for instance, you and I have interacted a couple of different times where I brought you in to speak and I also don’t want to force it, I don’t want to just bring people on just to add to diversity,  I want to be able to talk to people that I feel are doing great stuff but at the same time, I can see my biases come out. And like, hey, I want to talk to guys, I want to talk to these people and it requires us to be a little bit more self-aware, I guess that’s where I’m going with this, or what we’re doing, and what we can do to help others because, as you know, especially in the scrum Alliance community, having people mentors and people that can help you is night and day as far as how you can succeed and how you can join the community and all of that. If people don’t have that platform, for instance, what you’re creating or just seeing, hey, can I make it, is it even possible for me to make it.

So the more that people see, and the more that we create equal opportunities for people to get mentors to do these supplements, I think the richer our community and not necessarily just scrum Alliance, but in general outside of Agile. Reflecting back, it requires all of us to be a little bit more conscious about what we’re doing and being more proactive and I’m trying. I’m saying, I’m reaching out, working with Bob but he was sharing some of the things that he was doing. I don’t know if you know the story where he was talking about how his daughter was pushing him, yes, you can say you’re supportive, but what are you doing about it? What steps are you actually taking to make a difference, and that resonated with me, too,  same way that at the beginning of this conversation, you said, these are the things that I’m actually doing to help people in Nigeria in Africa, not just saying, I support you, but I’m also doing it through these actions. I think that’s a good example of not just talking, but actually following through with some action, so that’s inspirational to me.

Aanu Gopald  28:44

Thank you so much. My experience with the work I’m doing in Africa consciously made me to be self-aware of the role I am playing in the evolution of the human systems. I’ve always believed that, Africans are the only ones that can solve their own problems and the Girls in Tech initiative, really confirm that for me because I see transformational change happen for these girls, what they need is connecting them to the opportunities, they are ready. Africans are ready for change, we easily embrace change. We have very limited opportunities compared to the Western world and we are readily available for different types of opportunities and different types of change. 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  29:50

You think technology will change things because now it’s leveled and it’s easier to connect with people, it’s easier to work remotely. I’m assuming that’ll create more opportunities. I actually just hired somebody from Nigeria to translate, not translate but I’m creating a transcript and it’s easy. I’ve hired people from back home as well. It’s a global market and it’s interesting. Another thing that’s interesting, I don’t know. When I work from people back home, I prefer to speak in English, then in Serbo Croatian because it’s easier for me, especially in business terms, express. But the point that I’m trying to make, communication wise, now, everybody speaks English. So it doesn’t matter where you are, the person working from Nigeria is fluent in English and so the competition, I think, is increasing, but it’s also creating platform for people across the world. And it’s been like that for some time now. But what do you think from your perspective. How is COVID and technology creating more leveled field when it comes to the work?

Aanu Gopald  31:23

So technology has changed the way we work and COVID actually enforced that for everybody, every organizations in every parts of the world and like you said, most parts of Africa, especially in Nigeria, we speak English, and we speak fluent English, because we’re colonized by British and with technology, people can work anywhere and work for any organization in any part of the world. And when you do more research about what people are saying about Africa right now, Africa is now poised to be one of the fastest growing regions in the world and what this means for Africa is maybe we are going to be the new China, we are going to be the new India and we are going to be the hope for human capital. So, with the news and what we are seeing and the way technology is changing, the way organizations are working right now and the way people are working right now, Sally Elatta who is the founder of Sudan NextGen, and also Africa agility, my NGO, we’ve partnered together to start a new initiative called Africa NextGen and our aim is to make Africa the next destination for digital job outsourcing. If you go to africanextgen.com, we are developing youth in Africa with the right skills for them to be able to compete with their counterparts in the Western world.

Organizations, employers can hire talent from Africa actually the youth for digital jobs, and also invest in growing intrapreneurs within Africa. In the year of COVID about 200 startups were birthed in Africa, in the year of COVID when most organizations were shutting down. The African youth, like I said, they are agile,  they moved away from white collar jobs that doesn’t exist and they saw opportunities, innovation, using their creativity and they came up with companies that can help to solve the complex problems that we have in Africa. And right now on African NextGen, organizations can hire talent, African youth for digital jobs in customer experience, agile roles, (inaudible 34:10), they are certified, they’ve got the professional certification, they’ve gone through mentorship and the opportunities for them to grow. They can hire in mobile and web development, digital marketing, robotic data science, all our graduates from girls in tech, and also QA and automation testing. So we have those skills available and we have those talents available. So we are looking for organizations in the Western world. Come on, hire this amazing… Another thing about Africans, that we are very, very hard working. I don’t know if you have ever worked with an African. Normally when a job is nine to five, if we are not done with our work, we just want to deliver value and results, very, very hard working. It’s in our DNA.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  35:03

I grew up with immigrant in the United States as an immigrant, I went to ESL classes here and went to high school and even college and I had more in common with people from Africa and Asia than when we moved. Something that you said, I think it’s Africa is a great example, but I think applies for those that are listening, it’s not just for Africa. There are parts of the world that have similar situations where people are eager, and they see the potential how they can contribute to the problems and to the economy, globally. There’s so many parts of the world that are eager to be part of this bigger movement, around solving all kinds of bigger, I mean, biggest problems in the world. And I think it’s an exciting time too because I think in the next 10 years, it’s only just going to get bigger and bigger and we’re going to see the potential of what we can do when we have more people and more diversity across the globe engaged in solving problems and getting rather than just one parts and I don’t know, if you feel the same way, but I feel that the buildup, and it’s not just now, but I think COVID has really triggered it. Maybe, to come back to the question from earlier, what can we all do to improve social and professional equality? What are some of the things for those that are listening and including myself, that want to know in what ways we can help with social and professional equality?

Aanu Gopald  37:06

 To be to be honest with you, privileges on ramps would only show up consciously or unconsciously, especially if you are in this part of the world, the Western world and few things that came to mind for me is, number one, we have to be consciously aware of the way we show up at work, and also in the community, it’s not about color at all. It’s about showing up the way we want people to show up for us. Secondly, we should learn how to give the gift of love, the gift of care, the gift of support to the community, regardless of the color, the shape, even the field. We go out to meet people, what do we do, we put smiles on people’s face, especially those of us that we came from Asia or Africa, and maybe we live in this world, there are so many things happening in our parts of the of our world with our family that bothers us a lot, that we so much care for. And also, living and working here with the way some people behave, I don’t want to mention some few things. But we should show up with love, with care, with supports, everyday think about what gifts do you want to give to others, how do you want to put smiles on the faces or in the face of one person.

How do I want to touch one life today. Another thing that came to mind is yes, we know that we have a lot of challenges, we have lots of issues in developing countries or continents and most of the time you hear bad reporting about oh, this country is this, every country have its own vices, we have our own problems, our challenges, we should start promoting the good things that is happening in developing countries, in some other parts of the world. And also with COVID happening last year and of course COVID is still in the space right now, people should show interest in by many more about the needs of other people, the people we work with, even when you go online, you can find out about how we can improve social and professional equality in Asia, in Africa, what can we do to support? 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  40:13

It’s really about, as you’re saying, what I’m hearing is empathy and experience but I also tell people, it’s very difficult to empathize if you’re not willing also to, in some ways put yourself in that experience, right? It’s a fine line between, well, it’s not a fine line, but for many people it is, without truly understanding what people are going through or what they’ve gone through. And for many people, we only and including myself, if I really want to understand what Aanu is thinking, and to truly be able to empathize with Aanu, I have to see through your eyes and experience all and try to understand what you grew up with, what has shaped your worldviews, your perspectives, in order to truly be able to support and see things from somebody else’s perspective. I think a lot of times we don’t have that experience, we don’t have that platform, I can say, I support the diversity, I support this and that. This goes back to what I was saying, I have to do something about it, I have to try to do something about diversity, only then will I start getting a small sense. Oh, what that is about, it’s not just talk, talk but put yourself in a position where you can learn more about really what we’re talking about and what other people might be going through.

Aanu Gopald  42:06

Yeah, exactly. I’ve heard a lot of people saying, Oh, we are supporting diversity and inclusion and equality. It’s all about talk, talk and there are different ways that we can support. People are hungry, people are, oh, God. Financial sponsors, $10 is a big amounts of money for some people, just that gift of $10. There are different NGOs or individuals making big impact. Share your knowledge, you don’t have money, but you’ve got something here. Share your knowledge, that’s a gift that we can give to people. I’m going to be a bit personal here. For the Africa NextGen, we need mentors, we need trainers in all those skills that I have mentioned communication, emotional intelligence, leadership, just name it, digital marketing, customer experience, empathy mapping and lead product development. Agile, you’re a CST. You can offer free certifications, you can give the gift of coaching, leadership development, because this youth are leaders not just of tomorrow, they are leaders of today. There are so many things that we can give, we are looking for sponsors, we are looking for companies to provide paid and unpaid internships for the youth that graduate from Africa next gen initiatives. And also in September, we are having another Girls in Tech.

Right now, I’m desperately in need of financial sponsor, it cost a lot of money to run the bootcamp because it’s a passion for me. My husband and I and with a lot of Africans, individual Africans, they are supporting this movement. We are going to launch a donation, help fund, any one of those out there $50 means a lot to us, support this movement. We’ve trained over 200 Girls, we’ve trained sorry, about 200 Girls, of which 50% of them are in employment right now. That’s the impacts. 15% of them are either freelancing or they are Techpreneur. One of them is actually consulting for a company in the US and she lives in Nigeria. This is the smile that we want to put on the faces of these girls. We want to close the gender gap in technology. Right now we have 25% of female 75% of male of which only 3% are African Americans and Africa and the ratio of African women in technology is 0.0 something percent

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  45:10

Which is crazy. That’s the world that we live in and when you look at the numbers, and not just there, everywhere, it is insane. In a way, how can that be good for innovation if it’s so homogeneous. Getting us, our community that you and I are part of, getting scrum Alliance getting everybody just to understand a little bit, even that 50 bucks, all of the trainers, we all can chip in little bit, whatever it is.

Aanu Gopald  45:52

I’m coming to you, I’m just waiting to create it and posts it on the TCC group on LinkedIn, for my guide level families, and families and people that cares about impacting lives in Africa to support us. I spoke with, when I was in Nigeria, and I’m going to say, one of the top lawyers in Africa, there’s a state in Nigeria that, there’s a city, what the Girls does at the age of 15-17 is for the parents to send them for prostitution in Italy, that’s the business when you get to the age of that. That’s how the parents live, in a small city in that part of the country. and the dream of the man is, let’s bring Girls in tech to the city and he said, you know what, I’m going to do everything possible to sponsor you that if we can touch the life of just two girls, stop them from going to Italy for prostitution, that’s the biggest achievement for him. And I was like, wow, whatever it takes, I’m ready to do this. Those are the testimonials. Life is tough, very tough.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  47:31

It also tells you about the environment, if somebody is forced to do that, it tells you about the environment that they live in, and what type of options they have. So if we can just give people and girls options not to consider that or even be motivated or that something’s going to say, there is a potential here for me, or this is how I see myself and it is, and I think it just comes to all of us being more conscious and be more actionable about what we’re doing, it’s easier to say, it goes back to what I said at the beginning, I donate back home in both financially as well as, I support the communities where I’m from, but I still know that I can do more. And a lot I do, it can make huge difference. And I can give others like what you’re doing, getting others to evolve. This conversation, at least for me, is opening up again, it’s going to come back to me and doing something about it. But it is helping me get a little bit more motivated and put some more things into action. I wanted to ask you this earlier, just on the fun side, you’ve been doing and helping organizations outside of it adopt Agile and Scrum. Could you maybe share some of the stories or areas where you’ve helped companies outside of IT?

Aanu Gopald  49:15

Oh, I have so many examples and I’m thinking in my head, which example should I actually give? And the one that came to mind for me was Capital One. I was an Agile Coach within the IT departments in the small business and international car departments. The leader of the business team, and when I mean the business team, this is where the bankers,, the credit analyst, underwriters, booking and funding, the people you talk to when you’re looking for Loan, Mortgage and stuff like that, said, I love this agile thing that you guys are doing, I could see improvements, I could see sustainable change, I could see equality improving, morality and all those benefits productivity that comes with agility. And he said, Oh, I want to do the same thing for my business team. And I said, Okay, what problem are you trying to solve? The usual questions that we asked and he said, you know what, the turnaround time for business customers to ask for loan, and for the loan to be deposited into the account is like, Oh, I don’t want to give number because we want to reduce the lead time, the language, I will call it.

So started with training, just a bit of orientation of what Agile is, and blah, blah, blah, and they decided to call a cross-functional team, a cross-functional team of bankers, credit analyst, booking and funding and an underwriter part of a team. They do daily scrum, daily standup where they meet every morning, oh, yesterday, i decisioned XYZ loans. Today, I’m going to decision this loan, oh, yesterday, I spoke to a customer, some documentation we’re missing and today I will follow up, I have impediments, I do have impediment, so they form small pods so they call it pods. And they became more collaborative, they work together as a team. For an example, a documenters has a lot of documents to review and an underwriter is less busy, okay, oh, I can support you, I can help you. That team work, the real team work, the real scrum team work, started happening. To cut the long story short, they were able to become 40% faster and that was an amazing result.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  52:07

That’s what happens when you just put people together and let them figure things out.

Aanu Gopald  52:13

They just figured things out. It’s collaboration, the power of team collaboration, mutual accountability, it’s not my job, you are the one reviewing documents. No, we are a team and we are in it together and we succeed together as a team.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  52:34

That, yeah, and it goes back to even some type of conditioning, what we’re used to, like, in organizations, the way that organizations have been set up, it’s like, we’ve been untrained to just collaborate and figure things. A lot of times, we’ve been trained to take orders, especially in some countries, coming back to some of the cultural aspect, that’s how you’ve been conditioned, that’s what’s expected of you to just get together and figure things out. It’s like, it’s a normal thing, but it’s not a normal thing in a business setting. 

Aanu Gopald  53:18

That’s really true you know, because in Africa, if I’m older than you, you don’t call me by my name, you call me by my initial, you’d say AG, because of that culture respect. It’s disrespectful for me to call someone that I’m older than, it’s very disrespectful for me to call you Aanu, we call by initials. So that’s a sign of respect, that culture (inaudible 53:51)

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  53:52

I would definitely love to get your thoughts about how the cultural aspect is a global workforce. Now we have company culture, but we also have global culture, like you might have teams from all over the world that have come from different backgrounds, different cultures, and how’s that impacting the team culture or company culture, but we’ll save that. We’re almost out of time and it’s crazy how time flies by. What would you leave the listeners with? What is the message that you would like to leave everybody with?

Aanu Gopald  54:29

The message I would like to leave everybody is find something that you can give back to the community. There are different things that we can do to support the community. There are different gifts that we have within our capacity and power to give. It doesn’t have to be in Asia, it doesn’t have to be in Africa. Touch A Life every day.  And another thing I want to leave is everyone has a dream. Don’t be one of those people that will take their dream to the grave without achieving it. Believe in your dream and make it happen. Just step into your superpower and bring your dream to life. Find people that can support you. I have the best team in the world in Africa. They do most of the stuff. What I do is look for money. I have the best team in Africa that makes things happen. Find the best people that will share and believe in your dream, they will support you to achieve it. I always tell people when I’m talking to the youth, when you go to the graveyard and if your eyes could be open you will see amazing dreamers that died with their dream. Do not die with your dream, make it happen in this one lifetime that you have. Make that big impact in the world. We are all created to bring a change to the world. Be that change agents.