TL; DR: Cognitive Debt — Food for Agile Thought #532
Welcome to the 532nd edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 35,728 peers. This week, Margaret-Anne Storey warns that AI-augmented development creates “cognitive debt” as teams lose shared understanding of their own software. Janna Bastow proposes that product teams need clearer accountability for business outcomes, not more empowerment, and Teresa Torres introduces an AI-powered tool turning interview recordings into draft Opportunity Solution Trees. Ethan Mollick breaks down three layers you need to grasp when using AI. Also, Lenny Rachitsky talks to Boris Cherny about building Claude Code at Anthropic, while Sebastian Siemiatkowski explains how Klarna flipped its AI strategy to turn human customer service into a premium experience.
Next, Ondrej Machart shares 13 Claude Code projects that transformed his product manager role and the mindset shifts that made them possible. John Cutler uses three juggling metaphors to help teams diagnose whether their strategy reflects deliberate choice or undisciplined prioritization. At the same time, Zvi Mowshowitz breaks down Dario Amodei’s latest podcast on AI timelines and adoption barriers. Aakash Gupta reviews Claude Cowork’s expanding capabilities, and Lorin Hochstein explores why Drucker’s OKR approach outlasted Deming’s systems thinking in U.S. management.
Then, Naval Ravikant explains how AI turns English into a programming language, flooding markets with apps and raising the bar beyond average. Sasha Rogelberg reports that a study of 6,000 executives found nearly 90% see no AI impact on productivity, reviving Solow’s 1987 paradox for a new era, and Elena Verna shows how Lovable boosted engagement and retention by adding credit top-ups alongside subscriptions. Tom Geraghty connects Toyota’s Andon Cord to psychological safety, while Martin Alderson shares a three-step method for generating branded reports and slides with AI coding agents.
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🏆 The Tip of the Week: Cognitive Debt
: How Generative and Agentic AI Shift Concern from Technical Debt to Cognitive Debt
Margaret-Anne Storey introduces “cognitive debt” as a growing threat in AI-augmented development: while technical debt lives in code, cognitive debt lives in developers’ minds. As AI agents produce code faster, teams risk losing shared understanding of what their software does and why, demanding new mitigation practices.
🎯 Product
(via ProdPad): Product Teams Don't Need More Autonomy. They Need Clearer Accountability
Janna Bastow says autonomy without outcome accountability creates discovery and nervous executives. Product teams need business-fluent goals, metrics, and trust narratives that link work to revenue, retention, and margin.
: From Customer Interviews to an Opportunity Solution Tree—In Minutes
Teresa Torres introduces an AI-powered integration with Vistaly that transforms customer interview recordings into a draft Opportunity Solution Tree, addressing the common gap between conducting interviews and actually synthesizing what teams learn from them.
(via Medium): Lessons From 13 Claude Code Projects That Changed My Product Manager Role
Ondrej Machart shares 13 Claude Code projects that transformed his product manager role, from publishing an iOS app to building ML models, highlighting key mindset shifts for PMs embracing AI-assisted building.
: The Three Juggling Acts (Strategic, Lazy, and Survival)
John Cutler offers a framework using three juggling metaphors to help product teams honestly diagnose whether their strategy reflects deliberate optionality, undisciplined prioritization, or being overwhelmed by accumulated commitments.
🧠 Artificial Intelligence
: A Guide to Which AI to Use in the Agentic Era
Ethan Mollick explains that using AI now means understanding three layers: the underlying model, the app you use to access it, and the harness that determines what actions the AI can actually take.
and : 📺 🎙 Head of Claude Code: What happens after coding is solved
Lenny Rachitsky interviews Boris Cherny, head of Claude Code at Anthropic, on turning a terminal prototype into a used coding agent, product principles, why coding feels solved, and practical tactics.
: On Dwarkesh Patel’s 2026 Podcast With Dario Amodei
Zvi Mowshowitz breaks down Dario Amodei’s latest podcast with Dwarkesh Patel, covering AI capability timelines, Anthropic’s growth trajectory, export controls on China, and why diffusion remains a real barrier to AI adoption.
: You Should Be Using Claude Cowork: Complete Guide
Aakash Gupta reviews Claude Cowork's recent expansion, covering native Excel and PowerPoint integrations, browser automation via Chrome, scheduled tasks, open-source plugins, and parallel task execution across multiple workstreams.
: A Motorcycle for the Mind
Naval Ravikant explains how AI turns English into programming, enabling “vibe coding,” flooding markets with apps, and raising the bar beyond average. He believes learning by doing and using AI as a tutor reduces anxiety through action.
🖥 💯 🇬🇧 AI for Agile BootCamp #6 — March 19 to April 16, 2026
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Learn more: 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 AI for Agile BootCamp #6 — March 19 to April 16, 2026.
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➿ Agile & Leadership
(via Charter - Future of Work, AI, Management, Hybrid): 📺 From the frontier: Lessons from Klarna's ambitious AI rollout
Sebastian Siemiatkowski shares how Klarna cut staff by 50% through attrition while boosting revenue per employee by fourfold, and now is flipping its AI strategy to make human customer service a premium VIP experience.
(via Fortune): Thousands of CEOs just admitted AI had no impact on employment or productivity—and it has economists resurrecting a paradox from 40 years ago
Sasha Rogelberg reports that a study of 6,000 executives found nearly 90% see no AI impact on productivity or employment, reviving Solow’s 1987 productivity paradox for the AI era.
: Poor Deming never stood a chance
Lorin Hochstein explores why Drucker’s OKR-driven management approach outlasted Deming’s systems thinking in the U.S., concluding that managers preferred the easier, more bounded framework over Deming’s demanding, open-ended one.
📯 The A3 Handoff Canvas
The A3 Framework helps you decide whether AI should touch a task (Assist, Automate, Avoid). The A3 Handoff Canvas covers what teams often skip: how to run the handoff without losing quality or accountability. It is a six-part workflow contract for recurring AI use: task splitting, inputs, outputs, validation, failure response, and record-keeping. If you cannot write one part down, that is where errors and excuses will enter.
The Handoff Canvas closes a gap in a useful pattern: from an unstructured prompt to applying the A3 framework to document decisions with the A3 Handoff Canvas, to creating transferable Skills, potentially leading to building agents.
Learn more: The A3 Handoff Canvas: Six Questions That Turn AI Delegation Into a Repeatable Workflow.
🛠 Concepts, Practices, Tools & Measuring
: We stopped forcing the subscription model on our users. Here is what happened.
Elena Verna explains how Lovable introduced credit top-ups alongside subscriptions, boosting engagement and retention by 7%, proving that forcing users into rigid subscription models hurts both experience and growth.
: Psychological Safety: The Andon Cord
Tom Geraghty explores how Toyota’s Andon Cord practice embodies psychological safety: pulling the cord to flag problems is praised, not punished, creating a culture of continuous improvement and shared responsibility.
: How to generate good-looking reports with Claude Code, Cowork or Codex
Martin Alderson shares a three-step method for generating professional, branded reports and slides using AI coding agents: extract your design system, create HTML templates, and convert Markdown to polished PDFs.
📅 Scrum Training & Event Schedule
You can secure your seat for Scrum training classes, workshops, and meetups directly by following the corresponding link in the table below:
| Date | Class and Language | City | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 February 19, 2026 | Guaranteed: Hands-on Agile #72: Become Your Organization's AI Champion: A Crowdsourced Playbook (English; Live Virtual Meetup) | Meetup | FREE |
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| 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 March 19 to April 16, 2026 | Guaranteed: AI4Agile BootCamp #6 (English; Live Virtual Cohort) | Live Virtual Cohort | €499 incl. 19% VAT |
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| 🖥 🇩🇪 May 19-20, 2026 | Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German; Live Virtual Class) | Live Virtual Class | €1,299 incl. 19% VAT |
See all upcoming classes here.
You can book your seat for the training directly by following the corresponding links to the ticket shop. If the procurement process of your organization requires a different purchasing process, please contact Berlin Product People GmbH directly.
📺 Join 6,000-plus Agile Peers on Youtube
Now available on the Age-of-Product YouTube channel to improve learning, for example, about the Real Value Journey:
- Hands-on Agile #68: How to Analyze Unstructured Team Interview Data with AI.
- Fabrice Bernhard: The Lean Tech Manifesto.
- Maarten Dalmijn: The 5 Obstacles to Empowered Teams.
- Roman Pichler: The Top Reasons Why a Product Strategy Fails.
- Johanna Rothman: How to Instill Agility, not Agile Practices.
- Hands-on Agile EXTRA: How Elon Musk Would Run YOUR Business with Joe Justice.
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Help your team to learn about how AI Intensifies Work by pointing them to the free Scrum Anti-Patterns Guide:
