TL; DR: What AI 4 Agile Topics Shall I Cover in Version 2?
Version 1 of the AI for Agile Practitioners Online Course just closed its first two weeks with 250 new students. The feedback has been direct and useful: Practitioners value the realistic MegaBrain.io scenario work, the quiz design that tests judgment rather than memorization, and the focus on ethics and responsible AI alongside practical application. So far, that’s good, but AI 4 Agile v2 seriously needs your input: What topics shall I cover?
👉 Hence, please join the AI 4 Agile v2 Survey; it won’t take more than 3 minutes.
TL; DR: Sabotaging AI — Food for Agile Thought #516
Welcome to the 516th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 40,359 peers. This week, Jenn Spykerman addresses unknowingly sabotaging AI according to a 1944 manual, masquerading endless committees, perfectionism, and cautious delays as good governance. Leah Tharin challenges claims that LLMs can stand in for real customer insight, warning that dashboards can fuel strategy theater, while John Cutler connects prioritization to strategic leverage and power dynamics. Jing Hu reframes AI failure stats as early-stage noise, and Duncan Brown warns that AI favors the visible over the messy, human glue that makes effective teams work.
Next, Chetan Kapoor shows how eBay uses feature flags as discovery tools to validate demand early and surface usability issues. Kyle Poyar critiques popular SaaS pricing models and shares fixes that avoid complete overhauls. Ethan Mollick maps the current AI landscape with practical guidance on tools, tiers, and tactics. At the same time, Zvi Mowshowitz highlights key takeaways from Karpathy’s AGI views, and James Shore reframes engineering accountability through product bets instead of features and deadlines.
Lastly, Anthropic’s Claude receives “skills” as modular guides for specialized tasks, now open-sourced on GitHub. One author explores how great teams grow through targeted support and bold delegation, and Jeff Sauro and Jim Lewis dissect NPS claims, separating useful signals from misleading noise. Charlie Guo calls out the creeping signs of AI-generated content and its cost to authenticity. Finally, Karen Dahut presents Google Skills, a vast new learning platform for AI and tech upskilling.
TL; DR: Dangerous Middle and the Future of Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches
Peter Yang, a renowned product leader, argues that AI will split product roles into two groups: Generalists who can prototype end-to-end with AI, and specialists in the top 5% of their fields. Everyone else in the dangerous middle risks being squeezed.
How does this apply to agile practitioners: Scrum Masters, Product Owners, Agile Coaches, and transformation leads? It does, with important nuances.
TL; DR: Poor Decisions by Managers — Food for Agile Thought #515
Welcome to the 515th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 40,381 peers. This week, Henrik Mårtensson explores six decision-making traps managers fall into and how to overcome poor decisions with candor and deliberate practice. Janna Bastow highlights how skipping feasibility checks sabotages product delivery, offering lightweight tactics for trust and clarity in the AI era. Also, Teresa Torres and Petra Wille explore how product leaders shape their legacy through their impact, values, and reflection. Meanwhile, Jacob Poushter and team find AI anxiety outweighs optimism, and Maarten Dalmijn warns how process bloat kills team ownership.
Next, Melissa Suzuno outlines how product operating models shift focus from outputs to outcomes, scaling through pilot teams and leadership support. Roger Snyder addresses the tension between PM and PO, emphasizing the importance of alignment on purpose, ownership, and cadence, while Charlie Guo examines LLM performance drift, providing mitigation strategies. Barry O’Reilly lists 21 signs your AI project might be undead, and Martin Eriksson warns that empowerment fails without a strategic context and a deliberate shift in leadership stance.
Lastly, Pawel Brodzinski warns that autonomous AI agents lack the trust needed for broad adoption without transparency and alignment. Jens Meyer critiques veto-heavy cultures and calls for genuine accountability, where saying yes means accepting the outcome. Also, Emily Webber shares tips on selecting meaningful icebreakers that promote safety and connection, and Steve Blank defends science as the engine of innovation. Finally, Matt Kamelman stresses that smart AI starts with context, not just more data.
TL; DR: Test-Drive the Questions of the AI 4 Agile Assessment
Help me QA the questions for the AI 4 Agile Certificate by taking three short practice quizzes on the intersection of AI and Agile. In return, pass 2 out of 3 and get a free shot at the real AI 4 Agile Certification (40 questions, 45 minutes). The top performer of this small competition also receives the full AI 4 Agile online course.
Your feedback on the questions matters tremendously and helps shape a better curriculum for all practitioners.
TL; DR: Mastering AI 4 Agile with the Best Self-Paced Online Course
The Mastering AI with the AI 4 Agile Online Course launches this week, and I am proud that I avoided another delay. Scope creep happened despite my supposed expertise in preventing exactly that. The course expanded from a simple prompt collection to over 8 hours of video, custom GPTs, and materials that I’ll apparently continue to update indefinitely, as I’m still not satisfied that it’s comprehensive enough. (Also, the field is advancing so rapidly.)
At least the $129 lifetime access means you will benefit from my urge to fight my imposter syndrome with perfectionism and from my inability to call a project “done.” I guess we are in for the long term. 🙂
