Badass Agile

Agile was always at its best in small places. Startups, disruptors, the five person team in the corner nobody was watching. Somewhere along the way we dragged it into the office tower. We forgot where it came from, and what it was good at.

When I met Eric Wu and Andrew Don of Catalyst Impact Studio, I wanted to know what it looks like when you take Agile back home. They wo...

Agile coach jobs aren’t coming back, and most of us already know it. What we haven’t done is accept what that means.

Agile coach jobs went away (so we hid from the change)

The irony of this profession is that agile is an approach to change, and we practitioners are as frightened of change as anyone we’ve ever coached. So ...

Why AI Isn’t Making Companies Faster

Why AI isn’t making companies faster? Common question I get these days, and the answer isn’t that mysterious. Everybody bought the tools, and ran the pilots, but nothing sped up.

That doesn’t mean the money was wasted, and it doesn’t mean AI is a fraud. AI is an amplifier...

Ever work on a team where there was one, maybe two people who could be counted on to drag a project across the finish line just before the stroke of 12:00? That’s what happens when you work at scale. People work hard, but the last thing they have time for is proper orchestration to help them land safely under pressure. Cutting people with an appropriate dialing back of scope makes the problem ev...

No amount of tooling makes an organization go faster or do better. AI has made that clearer than anything else I’ve watched in nine years of doing this. What it has produced instead is what people are now calling the human wreckage of AI.

How I Met Angela Dugan

So one day I’m cruising around LinkedIn, in a market where nobody c...

Ripe for Disruption

In an environment begging for disruption, Agile lost its reputation. It wasn’t because the 12 Principles were ineffective.

It’s because we let it fall prey to comfortable, common thinking. Slow it down, make it safe. Don’t shake the floor; just go faster.

When we want calm...

The Rise of The Authentic Agile Leader

I’m obsessed with voice. If you look carefully at history….THERE IS NO politician, writer, performer, or business leader who got the attention and results they’re famous for WITHOUT BEING BOLD.

Like the revolutionary voices of our culture, the authentic Agile leader has the potenti...

The Forge Programs: Navigating the End of the Agile Era

Nine years of Badass Agile has led to this exact moment. The ground under the industry has shifted. The comfortable era of easily landed roles and endless demand for generic agile support is gone. If you are watching your position disappear or feeling th...

AI Agile promises easier work, but it creates a leadership trap for anyone trying to stand out. When leaders turn to AI Agile for content, resumes, or pitches, the output becomes uniform and robotic, blending into the surrounding noise. Distinction requires consistent effort in uncomfortable areas: making direct outreach, stating difficult positions, and drawing connections others overlook. AI Agile ex...

The Evolving Role Of The Agile Coach

Being an Agile Coach is no longer about staying buried in frameworks or cheerleading teams. It’s about getting out of the team room, talking to the business, and understanding what people are measured on, what they fear, and what they need to move faster and create value.

Why It...

The Real State of Agile in 2026

It’s been nine years since I started this show, and I can tell you this. Agile isn’t going anywhere. But man, has it ever changed shape. Agile in 2026 is barely recognizable from when I started. Our resumes are no longer welcome in recruiter inboxes. Funny, because what we were hired FOR has never changed. Businesses need t...

Meet Kevin Sutherland of SI Delivery Consulting

Kevin Sutherland is doing bold things to bring agile methods to large-scale government. He went from early days with Accenture, through first-hand experience with waterfall and the pitfalls of massive system delivery, to founding his own company focused on state-level innovation. Kevin isn’t just theorizing about ag...

What’s the Real AI Opportunity?

You know me. I think the AI thing is a bit of a sandstorm. A gold rush. There’s no question its useful (I use it for a ton of stuff actually) and there’s no question its only going to get better. But in the early stages of any new tech, there’s a lot of hype, a lot of bandwagon-joining, and a lot of waste. (Y2K? N...

Welcome back Adam Smith, founder of Tension, a Toronto-based user experience firm.

It’s been about a year since our last conversation, and Adam Smith’s journey through the rise of AI, the shifting value of UX/UI, and the broader changes across creative and knowledge industries made us reflect more deeply on what we actually do—and how we define ourselves...

It’s not just an ideal time to create a movement, it’s essential now.

Agile isn’t going to rebound to its original shape. Corporate work isn’t going to get less stressful. Jobs aren’t going to become more abundant. And AI isn’t going to save you from anything.

It’s not that things are crumbling. They&r...

You chose this tribe. You opted in, because you’re a Badass Agile Leader.

This is the call. Time to raise your voice. You have experience, you have something to say. Your wisdom is worth something. Rather than chill on social media and bark about how bad things suck…why not DO something with that passion? With that point of view?

...

Time To Stand For Something

It’s our season to carve out an authentic place as leaders in the new universe of Agile. Following the crowd isn’t enough. In this environment, flooded with process trainers and framework enforcers, there’s an absence of meaningful leadership. We’re encouraged to focus on the steps and systems, but how are we developi...

Time to Stop Doing and Start Leveraging Agile

Let’s get real about the current state of Agile in our industry and what it means for your career. I get the fear and uncertainty many of us are feeling. We’re seeing pay cuts, shrinking opportunities, and the sense that the “glory days” of Agile might be over. But it’s not the end. Agile as a ...