Scrum.org Community Podcast

Scrum.org

Welcome to the Scrum.org Community podcast, a podcast from the Home of Scrum. In this podcast we feature Professional Scrum Trainers and other Scrum Practitioners sharing their stories and experiences to help learn from the experience of others. 

  1. Oct 22

    Managing AI: Accountability, Governance, and the Skills We Never Learned

    Is AI just another tool, or something that requires you to manage it? In this episode of the Scrum.org Community Podcast, Dave West talks with Darrell Fernandes about his paper, “The Hidden Management Gap in AI Adoption.” Darrell explains why AI sits in a gray area: more than a compiler or a database, but certainly not a human. Because it infers, and may not give the same answer twice, working with it well calls for skills that have traditionally belonged to managers, and that most individual contributors were never given the chance to build. Drawing on the work of Michael Watkins and Patrick Lencioni, Dave and Darrell discuss: Why you remain accountable for AI output, even when you didn’t write itThe “automation deference” failure mode and how polished output can hide hallucinationsHow regulation and organization size shape where AI governance gaps show upWhy review bottlenecks can’t simply be escalated to senior leadersOne simple practice you can start today: writing a RACI before you engage AI in a workflowRead the paper: https://www.scrum.org/resources/hidden-management-gap-ai-adoption

    Managing AI: Accountability, Governance, and the Skills We Never Learned

  2. Sep 30

    Ask a Professional Scrum Trainer - Estimation and Planning with Ludwig Harsch

    Why are forecasts so often late, or short of what was planned? In this live Ask a Professional Scrum Trainer session, Professional Scrum Trainer Ludwig Harsch answers audience questions on estimation and planning for Scrum Teams. He draws on his training and consulting work to explain why estimation should be tested and adapted to each team's context, not treated as a universal rule. Ludwig explains how teams can move from unreliable hour estimates to relative sizing. He discusses when Planning Poker is worth the effort and when a lighter approach fits better. He also covers how to forecast when support work, context switching, and external dependencies eat into capacity. He makes the case for giving stakeholders projected dates with probabilities rather than fixed promises, and explains how Monte Carlo simulations can support that conversation. In this episode: Moving from hours to relative sizing, and what "size" should meanUsing Planning Poker and facilitation to build shared understandingKnowing when to stop estimatingUsing AI in estimation without losing team discussionChoosing a planning horizon, including for regulated productsHandling support work, dependencies, and shifting prioritiesComparing velocity, throughput, and capacity-adjusted metricsWhy Scrum Teams commit to the Sprint Goal, not a fixed number of backlog itemsAdvice for newly formed teams still collecting dataTune in for some great insights on Estimation and Planning in Scrum.

    Ask a Professional Scrum Trainer - Estimation and Planning with Ludwig Harsch

  3. Sep 24

    Agentic Product Development: Governance at the Speed of AI

    Matthew Hodgson, founder of Zen X Machina, joins Dave West to unpack the Raptors project, an experiment that started by accident during digital transformation work and grew into a working model for agentic teams. Hodgson explains how he built a cross-functional AI team, complete with a Scrum Master agent named Al, and what it took to get the agents to self-organize, adapt sprint by sprint, and catch their own mistakes. The conversation digs into why explicit governance files matter more with agents than with humans, where agents still need human oversight, and why traditional governance models move too slowly for agentic AI. Hodgson also previews ideas from his book, Evolve, on adaptive governance for modern product operating models. Access the whitepapers that cover the experiment and learnings.

    Agentic Product Development: Governance at the Speed of AI

  4. Sep 10

    Can Versus Should in AI Product Delivery, with David Pereira

    In this episode of the Scrum.org Community Podcast, host Dave West sits down with product leadership expert and Author of Untrapping Product Teams, David Pereira, to explore how AI is transforming product delivery. David shares why the shift from estimates to investment matters more than ever, why having the capability to build something doesn't mean you should and how product managers can evolve into true context setters and strategic decision makers. T he conversation covers the difference between problem space and solution space, why shaky organizational foundations doom AI initiatives the same way they doomed past Agile transformations, and why human judgment, critical thinking, and imagination remain irreplaceable in a world of increasingly capable AI tools. David also discusses his experience training teams, his book and why he believes it's time to bring back the crazy ideas that usually get left on the whiteboard. Learn more about what David has been thinking about on the Untrapping Product Teams Substack and Podcast!

    Can Versus Should in AI Product Delivery, with David Pereira

  5. Aug 6

    Your AI Teammate Is Ready, Are You? Bringing Intention and Strategy to AI on Scrum Teams

    AI is joining teams faster than most organizations have frameworks to support it and that's actually an exciting opportunity, if you approach it thoughtfully. In this episode of the Scrum.org Community Podcast, Scrum.org COO Eric Naiburg and executive advisor Darrell Fernandes pick up where their popular webinar Managing Your AI Teammate left off, tackling the audience questions that didn't make it into the live session. The conversation draws smart parallels between AI adoption and the cloud journey most organizations have already navigated, explores how to set your team up for secure and effective AI collaboration, and unpacks what it really means to treat AI as a strategic partner rather than just a tool. Eric and Darrell also take on a forward-looking question most teams haven't gotten to yet: how do we use AI efficiently and responsibly, not just effectively? If your team is starting to work alongside AI (and it almost certainly is), this episode will give you practical language and frameworks to do it with confidence.

    Your AI Teammate Is Ready, Are You? Bringing Intention and Strategy to AI on Scrum Teams

  6. Jul 23

    Rethinking HR from Scratch: How One Company Built a Truly Agile People System

    A conversation with Stephan Scholten and Cesario Ramos on transparent salaries, self-organized teams, peer-driven assessment, and what it really takes to design an HR function around people rather than processes. Most organizations claim to put people first. Their HR systems tell a different story. In this episode of the Scrum.org Community Podcast, host Dave West speaks with Stephan Scholten, Director of People and Organization at Visma Roxit and Cesario Ramos, creator of Creating Agile Organizations, about what happens when you actually redesign HR from the ground up with agile principles at its core. Stephan and Cesario discuss the radical steps Visma Roxit has taken: eliminating team leaders in favor of self-organization, opening up salary structures for collective input, and running peer-driven assessment processes that give employees genuine ownership over how their roles and compensation are defined. They explore the Theory X versus Theory Y tension that surfaces in nearly every organization attempting this kind of change, the slow and deliberate trust-building required before transparency can work, and how the arrival of AI fits into a system already designed around human interdependence and collective performance. Whether you are an HR professional, an agile coach, or a leader looking for a real-world example of empowerment done seriously, this conversation offers both inspiration and practical starting points. You can learn more about this story in the whitepaper titled Designing HR for Agile Organizations.

    Rethinking HR from Scratch: How One Company Built a Truly Agile People System

  7. Jul 9

    Rethinking How Organizations Scale with AI

    What happens to organizations when the cost of outputs drops to nearly zero? That is the central question Dave West and Dr. Mik Kersten are back to explore in this episode of the Scrum.org Community Podcast. Mik, the author of the upcoming book Output to Outcome, joins Dave to dig into why so many companies are failing to see meaningful value from their AI investments and why the organization itself has become the bottleneck. They cover the AI productivity paradox, why complexity is growing faster than outcomes in most large organizations, and what leaders need to do differently. Mik introduces the "outcome loop" as a mental model for leadership, explains why modularity and decentralization are the only structures that scale (in nature or in business), and shares why many organizations are quietly reverting to command-and-control patterns at exactly the wrong moment. If you work in or lead a Scrum Team, manage a product organization, or are thinking about how AI is reshaping the way we structure and run teams, this conversation will give you a lot to chew on. Output to Outcome by Dr. Mik Kersten is available for pre-order now, with release on July 14.

    Rethinking How Organizations Scale with AI

  8. Jun 25

    The Future of Scrum: Lessons from 17 Years of Give Thanks for Scrum

    For 17 years, the Give Thanks for Scrum (GTFS) event in Boston has reflected the evolution of Scrum itself, from early education and experience reports to scaling, business agility, and now AI integration. In this episode, Dave West sits down with GTFS founder and Managing Director of Improving Agility, Daniel Mezick to explore how the event began, sparked by bringing Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber together during Thanksgiving week in Boston, and how its themes have evolved alongside the Agile movement. The 2025 event returned to an in-person format and centered on three critical themes: Delivering tangible resultsIncorporating AI into Scrum practiceThe evolving role of the Scrum Master Daniel and Dave discuss why empiricism matters more than ever, how Scrum Masters must understand executive psychology, and what socio-technical design means in an AI-enabled world. They also explore whether large agile frameworks may give way to more focused, empirical approaches. Looking further into the future, the conversation turns to AI’s expanding role, practical application over hype, and a blended in-person/online format to grow the global community. If you care about the future of Scrum, stakeholder delight, and navigating uncertainty with empiricism, this episode is for you.

    The Future of Scrum: Lessons from 17 Years of Give Thanks for Scrum
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Ratings & Reviews

4.6
out of 5
14 Ratings

About

Welcome to the Scrum.org Community podcast, a podcast from the Home of Scrum. In this podcast we feature Professional Scrum Trainers and other Scrum Practitioners sharing their stories and experiences to help learn from the experience of others. 

Information

  • Creator
    Scrum.org
  • Years Active
    2020 - 2026
  • Episodes
    240
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Scrum.org Community Podcast
  • Show Website
    Scrum.org Community Podcast

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