Introduction: Self-Selection
and Why You Should Care

Fast growth has a way of forcing organizational change on a business, but it also presents opportunities to try new ways of working. When Trade Me, one of New Zealand’s biggest ecommerce providers, hit a new level of growth, we saw an opportunity to drive productivity by reorganizing the company into small, stable agile teams.

We found the best way to do it was using self-selection: trust the people who work in the organization—the engineers, testers, business analysts, designers, user experience professionals, and product owners—to come up with the best way to structure their teams. It seemed radical when we started, but it worked. Removing the managers from the equation and trusting in the employees involved created a fascinating story and incredible outcomes for everyone.