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Food for Agile Thought

Best posts from last week on agile and lean methodologies, Scrum and product management. Manually curated, no robots involved.

Food for Agile Thought #494: AI Success Framework for Organizations, Impact over Metrics, Prototyping Has Changed, Beyond Agile with FAANG

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TL; DR: AI Success Framework for Organizations — Food for Agile Thought #494

Welcome to the 494th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 42,602 peers.

This week, Ethan Mollick introduces a powerful Leadership-Lab-Crowd-based AI Success Framework for organizational change. Greg Nudelman boldly recommends replacing ego-bound product managers to boost innovation; guess what he suggests. Also, Aparna Chennapragada, CPO at Microsoft, tells Lenny Rachitsky why AI prototyping and NLX are reshaping the PM role, Dan Shipper reviews Claude 4 Opus, and Nick McGreivy reveals the limits of AI in scientific discovery.

Next, Andres Glusman tells Leah Tharin how failed A/B tests fuel SaaS growth. Aakash Gupta spotlights Andy Carroll’s no-code AI prototyping in a comprehensive video session, while Simon Willison warns of ChatGPT memory’s hidden trade-offs. Also, Brian Rain dissects why FAANG giants outgrew Agile, and Mark Levison debunks GenAI as a Scrum Master replacement, emphasizing its risks to team dynamics and core agile values.

Lastly, Pawel Brodzinski reminds us that autonomy without alignment breeds chaos, not progress. David Mack critiques AI-led interviews as a dehumanizing new trend, and Christina Wodtke urges a shift from metrics to meaningful outcomes. Finally, Johanna Rothman shares how goal-driven, networked, and supported autonomous teams fuel faster delivery and continuous learning.

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Did you miss the previous Food for Agile Thought issue 493?

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🏆 The Tip of the Week

Ethan Mollick: Making AI Work: Leadership, Lab, and Crowd

Ethan Mollick lays out a robust framework (Leadership, Lab, and Crowd) for turning AI’s individual productivity boosts into real organizational transformation. He argues companies must relearn how to innovate, adapt, and lead amidst accelerating change.

Source: Making AI Work: Leadership, Lab, and Crowd

Author: Ethan Mollick

🎯 Product

Greg Nudelman: The End of Human Product Management (and It IS for the Reasons you Think)

Greg Nudelman argues that ego-driven, ineffective product management is holding teams back and makes a provocative case for AI PMs as faster, unbiased, data-driven replacements that deliver more innovative, leaner roadmaps.

Source: The End of Human Product Management (and It IS for the Reasons you Think)

Author: Greg Nudelman

🎙 Leah Tharin: Andres Glusman: Why Your A/B Tests Are Lying (and How to Fix Them)

Andres Glusman joins Leah Tharin to reveal why most A/B tests fail, why that’s valuable, and how embracing failure drives smarter testing, faster learning, and real SaaS growth.

Source: 🎙 Andres Glusman: Why Your A/B Tests Are Lying (and How to Fix Them)

Author: Leah Tharin

🎙 Lenny Rachitsky: Microsoft CPO: If you aren’t prototyping with AI you’re doing it wrong

Aparna Chennapragada tells Lenny Rachitsky why prototyping with AI is now essential, how NLX is the new UX, and why PMs must evolve into tastemakers guiding product vision in the AI era.

Source: 🎙 Microsoft CPO: If you aren’t prototyping with AI you’re doing it wrong

Author: Lenny Rachitsky

📺 Aakash Gupta: Vibe Coding Tutorial in 72 mins, No Technical Background Needed (Windsurf)

Aakash Gupta features Andy Carroll, who demonstrates how non-technical creators can launch products fast using AI tools like Windsurf, showing practical no-code strategies, deployment tips, and how to build without writing code.

Source: 📺 Vibe Coding Tutorial in 72 mins, No Technical Background Needed (Windsurf)

Author: Aakash Gupta

🧠 Artificial Intelligence

Dan Shipper (via Every): Vibe Check: Claude 4 Opus

Dan Shipper puts Claude 4 Opus through its paces, praising its deep research, honest editing, and coding prowess, though he still prefers OpenAI’s o3 for daily tasks, thanks to memory stickiness.

Source: Every: Vibe Check: Claude 4 Opus

Author: Dan Shipper

Nick McGreivy: I got fooled by AI-for-science hype — here’s what it taught me

Nick McGreivy shares how his experience applying AI to plasma physics research revealed significant shortcomings and hype-driven overoptimism, urging scientists to rethink AI’s role as a revolutionary force in science.

Source: I got fooled by AI-for-science hype — here’s what it taught me

Author: Nick McGreivy

Simon Willison: I really don’t like ChatGPT’s new memory dossier

Simon Willison critiques ChatGPT’s new memory feature, arguing it compromises user control by applying past context unpredictably, highlighting both the potential and the pitfalls of persistent personalization in AI tools.

Source: I really don’t like ChatGPT’s new memory dossier

Author: Simon Willison

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Learn more: 🖥 🇬🇧 AI for Agile BootCamp Cohort #1 — September 4–25, 2025.

Customer Voice: “The AI for Agilists course is an absolute essential for anyone working in the field! If you want to keep up with the organizations and teams you support, this course will equip you with not only knowledge of how to leverage AI for your work as an Agilist but will also give you endless tips & tricks to get better results and outcomes. I thoroughly enjoyed the course content, structure, and activities. Working in teams to apply what we learned was the best part, as it led to great insights for how I could apply what I was learning. After the first day on the course, I already walked away with many things I could apply at work. I highly recommend this course to anyone looking to better understand AI in general, but more specifically, how to leverage AI for Agility.” (Lauren Tuffs, Change Leader | Business Agility.)

➿ Agile & Leadership

(via Medium): Beyond Agile: Why Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google, and Microsoft Didn’t Need Scrum

Brian Rain explores why tech giants like Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google, and Microsoft didn’t embrace Agile frameworks and instead built cultures, structures, and tooling that made formal Scrum unnecessary.

Source: Medium: Beyond Agile: Why Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google, and Microsoft Didn’t Need Scrum

Mark Levison: Why AI Doesn’t Replace Your ScrumMaster (and probably never will)

Mark Levison explains why GenAI won’t replace your Scrum Master anytime soon, despite the hype. He highlights where it helps and where it harms team collaboration, psychological safety, and actual Scrum values.

Source: Why AI Doesn’t Replace Your ScrumMaster (and probably never will)

Author: Mark Levison

Pawel Brodzinski: The Role of Alignment

Pawel Brodzinski emphasizes that genuine autonomy only drives results when teams are aligned around a shared purpose. Without alignment, increased autonomy amplifies chaos instead of momentum, making cultural clarity essential.

Source: The Role of Alignment

Author: Pawel Brodzinski

📯 Agile’s Quarter-Century Crisis: Why We’re Still Failing 25 Years After the Manifesto

The data couldn’t be more supportive: Despite 25 years of the Agile Manifesto, countless books, a certification industry, conferences, and armies of consultants, we’re collectively struggling to make Agile work. My recent survey, although not targeting Agile failure, still reveals systemic dysfunctions that persist across organizations attempting to implement Agile practices:

  • Impediment #1: Leadership disconnect (33 % of respondents cite management issues).
  • Impediment #2: Missing product vision (12 % of respondents can’t see the “why”).
  • Impediment #3: Cultural resistance (12 % of respondents report mindset barriers).

Learn more: Agile’s Quarter-Century Crisis: Why We’re Still Failing 25 Years After the Manifesto.

🛠 Concepts, Practices, Tools & Measuring

Christina Wodtke: Metrics Are Easy — Impact Is Hard

Christina Wodtke challenges our obsession with metrics, urging leaders to shift from output-driven thinking to outcome-focused impact, asking not what we’re measuring but what we’re genuinely trying to change in the world.

Source: Metrics Are Easy — Impact Is Hard

Author: Christina Wodtke

Johanna Rothman: How Autonomous Teams Help Everyone Learn and Improve

Johanna Rothman explains that truly autonomous teams, guided by clear goals, supported by facilitative leadership, and connected through small-world networks, deliver faster, learn continuously, and drive broader organizational improvement.

Source: How Autonomous Teams Help Everyone Learn and Improve

Author: Johanna Rothman

(via Slate): Worst Interview Ever: An Aggravating New Barrier Is Making It Harder Than Ever to Land a Job. Candidates Are Pissed.

David Mack highlights the rising use of AI in job interviews, revealing how impersonal, glitchy bots leave candidates feeling dehumanized, misled, and disconnected, raising questions about efficiency at the cost of basic respect.

Source: Slate: Worst Interview Ever: An Aggravating New Barrier Is Making It Harder Than Ever to Land a Job. Candidates Are Pissed.

📅 Training Classes, Meetups & Events 2025

Upcoming classes and events:

👉 See all upcoming classes here

🗞️ Last Week’s Food for Agile Thought Edition

Read more: Food for Agile Thought 493: SVPG Product Change Approach, Cheaters Gonna Cheat, Why Startups Fail, Perils of Seeking Approval.

📺 Join 6,000-plus Agile Peers on Youtube

Now available on the Age-of-Product YouTube channel:

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Food for Agile Thought 494: AI Success Framework for Organizations, Impact over Metrics, Prototyping Has Changed, Beyond Agile with FAANG was first published on Age-of-Product.com.

Agile
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Food for Agile Thought
Food for Agile Thought

Published in Food for Agile Thought

6.5K followers
Last published 6 hours ago

Best posts from last week on agile and lean methodologies, Scrum and product management. Manually curated, no robots involved.

Stefan Wolpers
Stefan Wolpers

Written by Stefan Wolpers

8.4K followers
1.1K following

I have worked for 18-plus years as a Scrum Master, Product Owner, and agile coach. Professional Scrum Trainer (PST) with Scrum.org.

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