Badass Agile

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 and predictable, we choose patterns. Copy something that works and repeat it. But patter...

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 potential to create a new future. It doesn’t matter WHAT futur...

The current moment feels like 'the end'. If you're truly Agile, the opportunities are everywhere. Tech feels like mayhem right now, but that creates MORE opportunity to envision the future, and place a bet on an experiment that could change everything. Isn't that what we're supposed to be good at?

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 the walls close in on your career, know this: the panic you feel is a signal, not a failur...

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 Agi...

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 Matters When we build regular conversations with the business, we stay closer to re...

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 to move the needle on metrics th...

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 agile transformation, he’s in the tre...

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? NFT’s? Anyone…?) W...

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. Adam describes how AI has dra...

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’re shifting. And if you build the courage and skil...

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? Before we start, I want to shine a light on someone who&...

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 developing the leaders we actually become, or wha...

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 mindset and practice isn&#821...

Certainty In Uncertain Times A turbulent world has an impact on our industry and our personal sense of purpose. Unrest, confusion, and uncertainty not only shapes markets, it bleeds into our daily work and our identities as Agile practitioners. We don’t shy away from admitting how tough things feel right now: many of us are tired, a little lost, and wondering if all the skills and experience we’ve...

Outcomes, not Outputs We wonder why Agile is dying. Should we be so surprised? You’re probably watching your wallet these days. Prices are up, the economy is slow and uncertain. Your employers are no different. In 2026, story points, velocity, lead time and throughput might matter to YOU, but they don’t matter to THEM. Not to say that those measures aren’t important. Heck, you ca...

Pivot your career by becoming an Agile Business Outcomes Partner. Help companies get what they’re begging for – real, measurable business value from their Agile investments. Buy the audio+PDF playbook here. The State Of Agile Report Finally Dropped For a bit there, I thought I’d missed it. I’m not 100% sure if there ever was a 2025 report, but for no good reason, I checked...

Fighting the word “Accountability” Whether or not you like the word, you can’t run a high-performing team without accountability. I recently read a post that blamed accountability and commitment for all of Agile’s failures. One commenter went so far as to suggest that accountability was an affront; an assault. If you’re on a team, or even if you’re being paid to...

Solving the Agile Executive Support Problem There is a statistic in the Agile community: the number one reason Agile initiatives fail is a lack of executive support. We see this stat, we nod our heads, and then we proceed to complain that leadership just “doesn’t get it.” But CEOs and executives aren’t sitting around wondering how to make YOU and your team more effective. T...

I figured it was about time I addressed this one. You can’t breathe without taking in some serious AI hype right now. How much is fluff and smoke, and how much is real? AND…how will this apply to Agile? Will AI Save Agile? Great question. I have a few gut-level reactions to this. First, I think there’s a gold-rush feel to what’s going on right now. With any new technology,...

I’m launching new cohorts for The Forge Lightning and The Forge Genesis. Go to https://learning.fusechamber.com to find out more and register today. What’s The Latest in Badass Leadership? Something is definitely up. People are angrier, meaner, less fulfilled, less patient and more intolerant. Manners and decorum are taking a back seat to ego and impulse. I won’t get into where I...

Paul Lepage, Foundation BTS On this episode, I sit down with Paul LePage, founder of Foundation BTS, a managed IT services and threat management company, in his office in Newmarket, Ontario. Paul shares his path from corporate IT manager to successful entrepreneur, revealing how embracing agile principles and learning from failure played a pivotal role in building his business. He shared real-worl...

How Important are The Agile Principles? To me, the 12 Agile Principles are everything you need to build and guide your practice. Rather than memorizing a ton of frameworks, rules and regulations, the Agile Principles allow us to hold in memory a few simple, yet elegant, virtues that can be adapted to any industry, client or context. It’s easy to recite the twelve Agile principles, but living...

Developing your Agile Coaching skill is NOT about MORE As you progress in your career, you might be tempted to accumulate MORE – more knowledge, more processes, rules, and templates. Why not sign up for one more newsletter, or substack, or Discord, or podcast, or blog. Why not read one more book? Why not go to another Agile Coaching camp, or conference? It makes sense on the surface. If some...

Sameness In Agile Practice There seems to be an awful lot of sameness out there. If you follow social media, especially LinkedIn, I’ve been seeing more and more Agile advice that encourages people to follow templates. Whether it be for retrospectives, standups, meetings, reports, or what to say to your boss, we’re promoting sameness as a virtue – whether we intend to or not. Why...