Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast: Agile storytelling from the trenches

BONUS: Why Your Agile Transformation Keeps Snapping Back — And What Systems Thinking Says About It
Natalia Curusi co-authored a book that doesn't tell you what agile should look like — it tells you what actually happens when you try to transform an organization. Friday-night deployments, zombie teams going through the motions, transformations that met a wall of silence. In this episode, we unpack the real lessons from the front lines: how personal values drive the shift to agile, why some teams have all the ceremonies but none of the substance, and what systems thinking reveals about why transformations fail — or snap back.
When Your Values Don't Match Your Ways of Working
"I felt like there is a mismatch in my values, my moral values and principles, and customer-centric orientation. So when I found out about Agile around 2010, I understood — okay, this is the answer. Now I have the answer how I can map my moral values and principles with software delivery."
 
Natalia's journey to agile didn't start with a methodology — it started with a gut feeling that something was wrong. Working in large corporations in the early 2000s with fixed-scope contracts, late deployments, and scripts running directly in production, she sensed a disconnect between how work was done and how it should be done. When she moved to a smaller company around 2010 and experienced transparency, collaboration, and the freedom to ask any question without fear, she realized this was the agile mindset — even before she knew the term. The key insight: agile isn't something you adopt, it's something that aligns with values you may already hold. That alignment between personal principles and ways of working is what makes the difference between going through the motions and genuinely transforming how a team operates.
Don't Be an Agile Zombie
"The first thing I observe — if I go to some of the ceremonies and I see that stand-up becomes like a status meeting, and everybody is reporting to somebody. People are afraid to say some of the things, afraid to escalate risks or assumptions."
 
One of the strongest chapters in the book is titled "Don't Be an Agile Zombie." Natalia describes teams that have all the boards, all the roles, all the right meeting cadences — but nothing is actually changing. The Scrum Master becomes a secretary. The Product Owner is a proxy afraid to make decisions. The tell-tale signs? Fear and formality. When people report upward instead of collaborating sideways, when risks go unspoken because the environment punishes transparency, that's a watermelon project — green on the outside, red on the inside. Natalia's approach starts with observing the tone and dynamics in ceremonies. If the stand-up feels like a status report and not a coordination meeting, something deeper is broken. And her advice is direct: if an organization is delivering waterfall and happy with the predictability and value, that's fine — just call it what it is. Don't put lipstick on a pig. As Rebecca Homkes discussed on this podcast, the key is to communicate the truth with care, but communicate it nonetheless.
Task-Driven vs. Value-Driven: The Real Spectrum
"It's not right to say that you are agile if you are not. Just name the things how they are — name the things using the right word."
 
Rather than the old waterfall-vs-agile binary, a more useful lens is the spectrum between task-driven and value-driven product development. On the task-driven side, somebody creates the list of tasks — requirements, architecture document, design document — and a project manager distributes them. Teams execute but aren't asked to be creative or adaptable. On the value-driven side, what matters is the impact of what teams build. Value is discovered through the dynamic interaction of functionality with customers — it can't be predetermined. Most organizations sit somewhere on this spectrum, and many are slowly moving toward the value-driven end even if they don't call it agile. The practical takeaway: transformation should be tailored to where an organization actually is, not where a framework says it should be. The book argues for a pragmatic, hybrid approach rather than evangelical purity.
Systems Thinking: Why Transformations Snap Back
"We did a big agile transformation — five years of real transformation. Then the company was bought, merged with a bigger payment provider. And now they are working with SAFe. And that's the end of the story."
 
In the later part of the book, Natalia and her co-author move into systems thinking — Cynefin, the Iceberg Model, causal loop diagrams. Many agile practitioners stop before they get here because it feels academic. But Natalia argues it's essential, and she illustrates why with a real example: a payment company that went through five years of successful agile transformation using LeSS, only to be acquired by a larger organization that pushed SAFe — and the transformation snapped back. This is the basin of attraction concept: a system has to pass through a point of genuine disruption before it can settle into a new stable state. Without that, it returns to where it was. For practitioners looking to get started with systems thinking, Natalia recommends The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge and learning to build causal loop diagrams — a practical tool that creates productive conversations about how organizational dynamics actually work.
The Post-Agile Era: Beyond Labels
"It's like comparing apples and orchestras. You cannot compare agile and AI — they are completely different things. Agile is not enough, but it's also not dead."
 
Natalia addresses the "Agile is dead" debate head-on. Her argument: comparing agile to AI is a category error. An apple cannot play an orchestra, and an orchestra cannot replace an apple — they serve entirely different purposes. AI can handle a significant portion of day-to-day tasks, but it lacks common sense, empathy, and the ability to read a room. Rather than declaring agile dead, Natalia sees a post-agile era — not one where agile disappears, but where we move beyond the label wars. The trends that matter aren't about whether agile is popular; they're about collaboration, adaptability, and understanding how teams and organizations actually work. We can finally talk about what matters in our industry without being pressured to label it.
About Natalia Curusi
Natalia Curusi is an Agile Coach at Endava with over 20 years in software delivery, specializing in agile transformations, delivery optimization, and systems thinking. She leads Asia Pacific initiatives driving business agility. She is co-author of From Resistance to Resilience: Practical Agile Lessons for Transformation.
 
You can link with Natalia Curusi on LinkedIn and visit her website at nataliacurusi.com. You can also join the Agile Continuum community on LinkedIn.

BONUS: Hard Hats and Standups — Why the Construction Industry Is Going Agile at GAS26
Felipe Engineer-Manriquez is one of the co-hosts of the Agile in Construction track at the Global Agile Summit 2026. In this preview episode, he and Vasco talk about why Agile belongs on the construction site, what the track's speakers discovered when they stopped following the plan, and why software people should pay close attention to an industry that builds hospitals, not apps.
Construction Is 20 Years Behind — And That's the Opportunity
"People don't realize that those ideas absolutely work in other industries. Agile's been successfully applied everywhere, and I think where it gets the least amount of publicity is in the construction sector."
 
When most people hear "Agile," they think standups in a tech office, not concrete and rebar. Felipe wants to change that. Construction, he says, is always about 20 years behind whatever process or technology the rest of the world adopts — a "very safe stock of keeping tradition." That gap is exactly what makes this track valuable. Agile is alive and growing in construction, and the translation turns out to be simpler than you'd expect. Most of what needs to change isn't the framework — it's the vocabulary. The sessions in this track show how practitioners made that jump with surprisingly small tweaks.
The Speakers Don't Know How Good They Are
"Half the speakers that I asked were like, 'what, me? Do I have a story to share?' I was like, yeah, you have this really amazing... people just don't realize how awesome they are."
 
One of the things that struck Felipe while assembling the track was how humble the speakers are. People who have transformed how their companies deliver work — including the keynote speaker, Brian, whose organization celebrated 10 years and saw dramatic before-and-after results — genuinely didn't think their stories were remarkable. They grew up in an industry with 100 years of project management tradition, where PMI-style thinking is the water they swim in. They don't see how different things look from the outside. Some of these practitioners couldn't even work across projects before adopting Agile — and now they're doing it routinely. That capacity shift alone is a data point worth paying attention to.
Stop Following the Plan — Start Responding to Change
"It's just ground into you, that thou shalt follow a plan. But in reality... they have to do heroic things to make those plans happen. Because the plans are just wrong."
 
Felipe zeroed in on the Agile value of responding to change over following a plan as the single biggest shift his speakers experienced. In construction, plan adherence is gospel — you follow the schedule, period. But in practice, teams were performing heroics just to make flawed plans appear to work. As speakers adopted Agile, they stopped forcing broken plans and started adapting. Felipe gives a nod to #NoEstimates — calling Vasco "the granddaddy of #NoEstimates" — as part of the same insight: the plans are wrong, and the sooner you accept that, the sooner you can respond to what's actually happening. The second pattern was equally powerful: for the first time, construction workers started thinking about who actually uses what they build. You'd think building a school or hospital makes the end user obvious, but Felipe says people in the industry can work for years and never once consider who receives their work. Agile forced that question, and the answers changed how they prioritize.
What Software People Should Steal From Construction
"Inside of every process are people. Everyone faces resistance to change... when I stopped trying to teach people, and I started inviting people, things changed."
 
Here's the cross-industry lesson Felipe wants software practitioners to hear: resistance to change is universal, and the breakthrough is the same everywhere. Every speaker in the track had a moment where they learned something new and didn't want to go back to the old way. That's the same moment every Scrum Master, product owner, and developer has lived through. The universal tactic that worked? Showing rather than telling. Case study after case study revealed that the real breakthroughs came not from training sessions or slide decks, but from demonstrating results and inviting people in. Stop teaching, start inviting — that's a principle that works whether you're pouring concrete or shipping code.
Come Monday, You'll Ask Better Questions
"The best thing you're gonna do on Monday after the summit is you're gonna start to ask really intelligent questions. That is gonna be priceless. That's something that AI doesn't even do for people."
 
Felipe's take on what attendees will walk away with isn't a new framework or a certification. It's a shift in the questions they ask. Twenty years into practicing Lean Construction, Agile, and Scrum, Felipe says asking better questions is the one thing that has stuck with him the entire time. Better questions melt away resistance, open up new perspectives, and make new ways of working accessible. The ideas in the track are, in his words, "not terribly complicated — they're actually quite simple, and I would even say elegant." And the speakers are approachable — Felipe personally vouches that every speaker in his track answers emails. There will also be live Q&A sessions during the summit for direct interaction.
When Your AI Agent Tells You to Build a Website, You Listen
"My chief orchestrator said, you should have your own website. So felipe.engineer was built."
 
In a delightful closing moment, Felipe shared that his personal website at felipe.engineer was built by his AI agent. Not suggested and then hand-coded — fully built, complete with a style guide the agent had strategically created two weeks earlier. Felipe jokes that the AI was setting him up: first planting the seed that he needed a style guide, then recommending it be applied to a brand-new personal site. Felipe also has a session in the track about building an AI bot for construction sites — another reason to check out the full lineup at globalagilesummit.com.
About Felipe Engineer-Manriquez
Felipe Engineer-Manriquez is a best-selling author, international speaker, and host of The EBFC Show. A force in Lean and Agile, he helps teams build faster with less effort. Felipe trains and coaches changemakers worldwide — and wrote Construction Scrum to make work easier, better, and faster for everyone.
 
You can link with Felipe Engineer-Manriquez on LinkedIn.
 
You can also find Felipe at thefelipe.bio.link, check out The EBFC Show podcast, and join the EBFC Scrum Community of Practice.

BONUS: The Game Industry Is Ending — And Why That Might Be the Best Thing for Agile Teams
In this BONUS episode, we preview the Agile in Gaming track at the Global Agile Summit 2026 with track host Eagan Rackley. Eagan shares how he curated a lineup of speakers that spans indie studios, AI-driven game platforms, and multi-studio leadership — all focused on the human side of game development during one of the industry's most turbulent periods. If you've ever wondered what Agile looks like when artists, designers, sound engineers, and programmers all need to ship together under pressure, this is the episode.
From Agile Coach Client to Track Host
"You helped me recognize strengths I'd been dismissing in myself as a leader that I could turn the volume up on, and helped turn me on to some of my more people-first instincts into actual leadership accents."
 
Eagan's path to hosting the Agile in Gaming track started when he worked with Vasco at Malwarebytes in the early 2020s. That coaching relationship shifted how he thought about leadership — moving from dismissing his people-first instincts to leaning into them. When the Global Agile Summit opened up volunteer spots in 2025, he jumped in and co-hosted the development track. Game dev speakers drew strong audience engagement, and when the team suggested a dedicated gaming track for 2026, it was an easy yes. For Eagan, hosting is not just about giving — it is about learning from peers in an industry he transitioned into and loves deeply.
Why Agile in Gaming Deserves Its Own Track
"A lot of the problems we solve in gaming are the same problems people are solving in Agile everywhere, just with a different space. But also, Agile is very specific in gaming — even something like storyboarding is functionally different because you're describing a car in a city that makes these sounds, that drives with physics in this way."
 
Gaming sits at a unique intersection of disciplines — art, sound, design, engineering, narrative — all collaborating under tight constraints. Agile shows up differently here. The frameworks are similar, but the mechanics of how multidisciplinary teams coordinate are distinct. At gaming conferences, you rarely hear people talk about agility the way the Agile community does, and at Agile conferences, gaming is almost never represented. Eagan saw that gap and built a track to bridge it. The problems — building trust under pressure, introducing change to skeptical teams, managing cross-discipline dependencies — are universal. The context just makes them more vivid.
The Producer Who Hates Agile but Runs an Agile Shop
"He doesn't like Agile at all. He runs a really humanist-centered version of waterfall that can pivot quickly, which my argument is it's fairly agile, but it's not something he believes in — but it's also one of the most agile places I've ever worked."
 
One of Eagan's most striking observations comes from his current studio, led by an executive producer named Chris Whiteside. Chris explicitly rejects Agile as a label — likely burned by past implementations where someone tried to install a framework rather than nurture a mindset. Yet the way he runs teams is deeply human-centered, responsive, and adaptive. It is a useful reminder that the label matters far less than the behavior, and that some of the most agile organizations don't call themselves agile at all. The pattern Eagan has seen across studios mirrors what happens everywhere: framework-only installations that generate resistance, versus environments where the mindset develops organically.
Accessible Excellence: The Skateboard Video Philosophy
"I wanted to create a track that felt like accessible excellence. Just pushing beyond right where we were, but you could watch these talks and say, I could do that, that could be me. On Monday morning, I want to go in and try to be that person a little more."
 
When selecting speakers, Eagan drew on an unlikely reference point: a 1990s skateboard video called Zero Hero by a company called Zoroac. The skaters were not doing impossible three-story drops — they were doing moves that felt just one or two steps beyond what you could already do. That is the energy Eagan wanted for the track. Not aspirational keynotes from unreachable experts, but stories from people whose work makes you think: I could try that on Monday. He deliberately chose speakers across a range of experience levels and industry positions to hit that sweet spot.
The Speakers and What to Expect
"I want this track to be the answer to the question of whether it's worth it to stay in the industry and keep going — with some evidence that there are people out there doing this work thoughtfully, doing it well, and finding ways to remain human."
 
The track features a deliberately diverse lineup. Clinton Keith delivers the keynote, titled "The Game Industry As We Know It Is Ending — And the Future Could Be Much Better," which examines why the old AAA model is failing and where the industry is heading. Umar Ajaz focuses on building Agile into indie studios from the ground up — a timely topic as the industry shifts toward smaller, more agile teams. Kat Antonovich brings a social work background to team dynamics and change management, and Eagan intentionally sought an associate-level speaker because junior professionals have been disproportionately hit by industry layoffs. Marcos Jordt presents on Bitmagic, a fully AI-driven game development platform, along with his experience setting up Agile in Finland. And Kari Koivistoinen addresses the macro level: how to run multiple studios while preventing crunch and keeping team environments healthy.
Who Should Register
"These are the same problems everyone is solving in Agile. How do you build trust on teams under pressure? Introducing change when people are resistant or skeptical. Those show up everywhere."
 
This track is for curious people — whether they work in gaming or not. If you are interested in how teams solve problems with creativity and constraints, how multidisciplinary collaboration actually works (or breaks down), and what happens when an industry goes through a genuine transformation, there is something here for you. The goal is not prescriptive solutions. It is about getting down to fundamentals: what makes people do their best work and what makes teams function well. For people already in the gaming industry, Eagan designed this track to be the answer to the question many are asking after years of layoffs, studio closures, and canceled projects — is it still worth it? The track says yes, and backs it up with evidence.
About Eagan Rackley
Eagan Rackley is the track host for the Agile in Gaming track at the Global Agile Summit and a seasoned software engineer and Agile leader with 24+ years of experience spanning game development, enterprise architecture, graphics, and highly parallel programming. A passionate problem-solver, he excels in building collaborative teams, driving innovation, and turning conflict into opportunity. He thrives on creating software that empowers people and transforms ideas into impact.
 
You can link with Eagan Rackley on LinkedIn.

BONUS: Why the People Track Exists — And What It Will Help You See at GAS26
The Global Agile Summit kicks off on May 4th, and the People track is one of the most loaded lineups this year. In this episode, track co-hosts Pete Oliver-Krueger and Alina Thapliyal share the story behind the track, the sessions they're most excited about, and why — in a world increasingly focused on technology and AI — the people dimension is more critical than ever.
The Story Behind the People Track
"Every transformation still comes down to how people feel, how they communicate, how they work with each other, how decisions are made, and how leaders can create a space and conditions for them to thrive."
 
The People track isn't new to the Global Agile Summit — it's been part of the event for several years, sometimes combined with the Product track. But this year, the volume and quality of submissions made it clear that the topic deserves its own dedicated space. Alina frames it in terms of the VUCA world we operate in: volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity make the people dimension more important, not less. Pete picks up the thread with a sharper edge — as AI and technology increasingly dominate the conversation, it's easy to lose sight of the people creating, designing, using, and selling the products. That tension is exactly why he wrote Shift: From Product to People with his co-author Michael. The book exists to pull practitioners out of product-as-a-thing thinking and into product-as-people thinking.
Product as a Thing vs. Product as People
"When we lose sight of the people around the product is when things start to suffer."
 
When Pete reviewed the track submissions, he noticed a telling pattern — a divergence that confirmed the track's reason for existing. Many submissions talked about product as an artifact, focused on deliverables and outcomes, with no connection to the humans involved. Then there was a second group that immediately saw themselves in the People track. Pete explains the dynamic: we all start by caring about people and solving problems, but at some point we pick a solution and the work of getting it done becomes all-consuming. The task becomes the goal and the people become objects. Unless we consciously leave space to think about relationships and human dynamics, we drift into laser focus on things. The sessions in this track are designed to be the antidote.
Marcus Bullock's Keynote — A People-First Success Story
"It's so inspiring to just listen to it and think that I can also do it. We can give people a second chance. We can focus on what's good and increase the good, rather than focus on what's bad."
 
Both Alina and Pete highlighted Marcus Bullock's keynote as a must-watch. Marcus, CEO of Flikshop, started from a deeply difficult place and built his way to leading a business and empowering others. What makes his story stand out isn't the arc from adversity to success — it's the honesty. Pete, who has known Marcus for over 15 years, points out that Marcus's story includes genuine ups and downs, and his people-first approach is what helped him weather all of them. Alina was struck by the energy Marcus brings and his focus on amplifying what's good in people rather than minimizing what's bad. It's a message that resonates whether you lead a team of five or an organization of five thousand.
Usability Theater — The Courage to Shut Up and Listen
"Take a product, give it to a customer, and don't say anything. Just let the customer try it, let the customer experience the product. We need to have the courage to shut up."
 
Alina's second highlight was the session on usability theater, where the core idea is deceptively simple: put your product in front of a customer and resist the urge to explain anything. No "look what we did here," no guided tour. Just observe how people actually interact with what you've built. It takes real courage, Alina says, because our instinct is to showcase and defend our work. But the insights you gain from silence and observation are worth far more than the comfort of narration. This is one of those sessions that sounds simple but could change how you run your next product review or demo.
Agency — Breaking the Permission Loop
"There is a necessity to understand ourselves and have some of this confidence, but that's true for everybody, even our leaders. They may be stuck in permission loops with their own bosses."
 
Tara Scott's session on agency and breaking the permission loop touched a nerve for both hosts. Alina shared that in companies she's worked for, drawn-out decision processes wasted resources and drove people to leave. Tara's session tackles how to empower people to actually make decisions. Pete adds a crucial nuance: the permission loop isn't just a top-down problem. Leaders are stuck in their own permission loops too. Everyone in the chain faces the same challenge, and the solution can't be found in a vacuum — it requires understanding where each person is coming from and building flexibility across the team and organization. If this topic hits close to home, Tara is also doing a live Q&A during the summit.
Neurodiversity, Jeff Patton, and the Full Lineup
"Every time I have a conversation with Jeff Patton, it just goes in all kinds of directions, and I have so much fun."
 
Pete flagged two more sessions worth watching. The neurodiversity session with Anita promises to open up a topic that deserves more airtime in the agile community — how different minds experience and contribute to team dynamics. And Jeff Patton, whose conversations with Pete apparently never follow a straight line, brings his signature blend of product thinking and people awareness. The full track covers a wide range: trust, leadership, inclusion, decision-making, neurodiversity. As Alina puts it, these topics are universal — they're about human behavior, and that's valuable in any field where you work with people.
A New Lens for Monday Morning
"I think people can take away from the track the ability to see other dynamics in their workplace that maybe they currently aren't spending a lot of time paying attention to, or didn't even realize were there."
 
When asked what attendees will walk away with, both Alina and Pete landed on the same metaphor: a new lens. Alina described it as a better understanding of how human dynamics shape culture and performance, paired with practical tips that can be applied immediately — no theory, just real-life stories from real practitioners. Pete took the metaphor further, comparing it to putting on night vision goggles. After watching these sessions, you'll start noticing dynamics you'd been walking past every day — relationship patterns, permission loops, communication gaps. And with that new visibility comes influence. You'll realize you have more ability to shape your environment than you thought, simply because you can now see what was always there.
About Pete Oliver-Krueger
Pete Oliver-Krueger is an Executive Coach with the Library of Agile, and co-author of the book "Shift: From Product to People", a novel that tells the complex story of how leading "people-first" is required to solve tomorrow's biggest problems.
 
You can link with Pete Oliver-Krueger on LinkedIn, and visit Pete OK's website at https://www.shiftingpeople.com/.
About Alina Thapliyal
Alina Thapliyal is the Scrum Master for a team within the public sector. Her aspiration is to become an agile coach. She grew up in Romania and has been living in Germany for 13 years. She loves jogging, reading and actively listening to people's life stories.
 
You can link with Alina Thapliyal on LinkedIn.

BONUS: AI Won't Just Change How You Work — It Will Reshape Your Organization
The Global Agile Summit is around the corner, and the AI in Organizations track is one you don't want to miss. In this episode, track co-hosts Michael Dougherty and Michał Parkoła walk us through what they've built — from the thinking behind the track name to the sessions that stood out, and why this isn't just another AI conference lineup.
Why "AI in Organizations" — Not Just "AI"
"AI will not only be useful to existing organizations, but it will reshape organizations in a very significant way, the same way cars reshaped cities."
 
Michael and Michał drew a deliberate line with the track name. Michael points out that AI has been around for decades — it didn't start with ChatGPT. The real shift now is AI agents scaling to enterprise level, replacing automation that used to require specialized tools. Claude Enterprise holds about 29% of the enterprise AI market, Gemini around 15%. But Michał pushes the framing further: the first-order effect is applying AI to existing work. The second-order effect — the one he's most interested in — is how AI will reshape organizations themselves. New species of companies will emerge, smaller teams will achieve what used to require hundreds of people, and some existing organizations won't survive the transition. That's the conversation this track is designed to start.
Filtering the Signal From the Slop
"There was a bit of AI slop in the submissions. There was a lot of talk that, unfortunately, was meta-talk — there was no real value that I could glean."
 
When session submissions came in, Michael was disappointed by how many were surface-level — big promises with no practical takeaway. The ones that stood out were practitioners showing what they actually do. Dave Westgarth, for example, demonstrated how he uses AI with Lovable and Claude embedded in Miro whiteboards to enhance real team interactions. On Michał's side, the standout was Max Pirata, who challenged the "vibe coding is slop" narrative. His argument: the quality of large-scale software has never depended on the infallibility of individual engineers — it depends on disciplined engineering processes. The same applies to agentic engineering. Your first attempt at vibe coding will be rough, but there are ways to apply engineering discipline to AI-assisted development. That's what Max will be talking about at the summit.
Prototyping at the Speed of Thought — And the Human Bottleneck
"Now I've got 20 prototypes that I can choose from. Which ones are the best? Which ones do I need to clear out? Product managers now have a different game they play."
 
Two sessions capture opposite sides of the AI-in-organizations tension. Dave Westgarth's "Vibe UX: Prototyping at the Speed of Thought" shows how vibe coding lets you build full working systems instead of Figma mockups — so fast that the bottleneck shifts from creation to selection. Product managers and product owners now face a new challenge: clearing the closet of AI-generated options rather than validating a single bet. On the other side, Shawn Wallack's session — "Even With AI, Your System Will Never Be Better Than Its People" — brings the counterpoint. Michael explains the systems-thinking angle: AI does what you tell it, fast and accurately, but that speed reveals human bottlenecks everywhere else. He shares the cautionary example of AI declining twice the insurance claims humans did, with the human-in-the-loop rubber-stamping instead of actually checking — leading to a class action lawsuit. The lesson: AI doesn't remove the need for human judgment, it makes it more critical.
Gojko Adzic on Spec-Driven Development and Building AI Products
"True to his roots, he is exploring spec-driven development now, which is one of the popular threads in agentic engineering."
 
Gojko Adzic — the author of Specification by Example and Impact Mapping — brings heavyweight credibility to the track. Michał reveals that while Gojko is exploring spec-driven development in the context of agentic engineering, the interview focused more on his hands-on experience building his own AI products. For attendees, this means real practitioner insights from someone who literally wrote the book on how specifications drive software quality — now applying those principles in an AI-first world.
From Beginner to Builder — Who This Track Is For
"My favorite case would be people who will quit their jobs and start new companies that will be able to achieve wonderful things with much smaller teams than we would otherwise imagine possible."
 
The track is designed to meet people wherever they are. Pierre Beaning covers the basics of using Claude for beginners. Jason Little — who Michael describes as a "techno nerd" and "grand poobah" — shows how to build and scale multi-agent systems for business. The spectrum runs from "I've only used AI to plan a vacation" to "I'm orchestrating agent teams." But Michał's vision for the ideal attendee is bolder: someone who walks away ready to start a company. Michael backs this up with the story of an AI unicorn — $1.8 billion valuation, one guy and his brother, in the pharmaceutical industry, just a few months old. Hype? Maybe. But Michał's pragmatic take lands it: "If you make a few million, even if it dies later, that's not such a bad thing." The goal of the track is to blow away the fog — throw flares into key spots so people can sketch a map of what's possible and decide which areas deserve a follow-up.
About Michael Dougherty
Michael Dougherty is the Co-author of Shift: From Product to People, leadership coach with 30+ years helping organizations adopt people-centered, agile ways of working. Co-owner of the Global Agile Summit.
 
You can link with Michael Dougherty on LinkedIn and find out more at shiftingpeople.com.
About Michał Parkoła
Michał Parkoła is an Agile practitioner based in Warsaw, Poland. Previously hosted the Value-Centric Product Development track at Agile Online Summit 2024. He is building Tapestry, an AI planning assistant.
 
You can link with Michał Parkoła on LinkedIn and check out Tapestry at growwithtapestry.com.