Definitely, Maybe Agile

Most organizations are running some version of a project operating model or a product operating model - or, more honestly, an uncomfortable mix of both. In this episode, Peter Maddison and Dave Sharrock get into what actually separates these two approaches, where the tensions show up, and why copying what works somewhere else rarely lands the way you expect. They dig into how the nature of your wo...

Product manager. Product owner. Project manager. Three roles that often exist in the same organization, sometimes in the same meeting, and frequently stepping on each other's toes. In this episode, Dave and Peter break down what actually separates these roles, why the confusion happens, and what it costs when the lines blur in the wrong ways. They dig into the difference between a project-cen...

Most organizations are somewhere between experimenting with AI agents and quietly hoping nothing breaks in production. Logan Kelly, CEO of Waxle AI, has spent a lot of time in that gap, and he thinks governance is the piece most teams are walking past too quickly. In this episode, Logan joins Peter and Dave to talk about what agentic governance actually looks like in practice, why a single consist...

Most conversations about AI focus on what it can do in a controlled setting. This one doesn't. Callum Sharrock spends his days deploying AI systems in real environments, watching them succeed and fail in ways no simulation predicted, and reporting what he finds. His conclusion? The trend line is steeper than most people realize, and snapshot thinking is getting a lot of organizations into tro...

Something is shifting inside organizations right now, and it's creating a split that's hard to ignore. AI is compressing the time it takes to generate, validate, and prototype ideas. Some people inside your org are moving at a completely different speed than the systems built to support them. Peter and Dave are calling it the great decoupling, and it's already happening whether you&...

A few times in tech, two streams collide, and everything changes. David Kilzer has spent 50 years putting automation to work in manufacturing and distribution around the world, and he thinks we're at one of those moments right now. The convergence of AI and humanoid robotics, in his view, is the biggest shift humankind has faced since fire. In this episode, David joins Peter and Dave to unpac...

Peter Maddison and Dave Sharrock sit down with Steve Pereira, founder of Visible Flow Consulting, to talk about something most organizations get backwards: the obsession with efficiency at the expense of actual flow. Steve works with large companies to improve operational performance through value stream mapping and continuous delivery. But the conversations he keeps having aren't about cutti...

The marketplace is full of AI noise, but what does it actually mean for how organizations innovate and learn? Dave and Peter revisit the classic pioneers-settlers-town planners model and discover something unexpected: AI has reversed the flow. Where organizations once looked up the chain for scaling lessons, now large enterprises are watching small explorers to understand disruption, while entrepr...

You know that expensive software system your company bought that everyone... stopped using? Deborah Kaminetzky sees this pattern constantly. Projects delivered on time and on budget that still fail because nobody wants to touch them. Deb brings a unique lens to technology implementation. She's a former attorney turned project management consultant who specializes in what she calls the "m...

What happens when you need to ship software in environments where failure isn't just expensive, it's catastrophic? Ivan Gekht, CEO of Gehtsoft, joins Peter and Dave to challenge how we think about agile delivery in high-stakes, regulated systems. Forget the innovation lab. Ivan argues that real innovation happens 10 minutes at a time, every day, at your desk. He shares why learning witho...

As we close out 2025, Peter and Dave are making predictions about what's coming in 2026, especially around AI, organizational change, and how teams actually work. They cover five key predictions: AI moves from tools to organizational capability : Organizations that invest in literacy, governance, and data foundations will pull ahead of those just sprinkling AI on top and hoping for the best....

What happens when your greatest strength becomes your biggest blind spot? In this episode, Peter and Dave sit down with Jill Macauley, COO of Behavioral Essentials, to explore how self-awareness shapes better leadership. They dig into why even talented leaders struggle with identity shifts, how generational expectations are changing the workplace, and why the best coaches focus on small tweaks rat...

In this episode, Peter Maddison and Dave Sharrock sit down with Josh Hill, an HR innovator who's challenging the traditional transactional approach to people management. Josh shares his unconventional journey from the Australian military to progressive HR, where he's pioneering the concept of "work as a product" at marketing agency Tier 11 and through his recruiting venture, Su...

Product managers and product owners are drowning in documentation, vision statements, roadmaps, and backlogs. But what if AI could handle the heavy lifting, freeing you up to actually talk to customers? In this episode, Dave and Peter explore how large language models are changing product management. They go beyond the obvious use cases (like generating user stories) to discuss upstream opportunit...

In this episode, Peter Maddison and Dave Sharrock welcome Justin Trombold, President and Founder of Antison Advisors, to discuss the parallels between agile transformation and generative AI adoption in organizations. Justin shares insights from his work helping companies navigate generative AI readiness, revealing that the biggest challenges aren't technical; they're organizational. From...

In this episode, Peter Maddison and Dave Sharrock welcome Rick Delisi, Lead Research Analyst at Glia and co-author of "The Effortless Experience" and "Digital Customer Service," to discuss how AI is transforming customer service in banking and credit unions. Rick reveals why the future of contact centers isn't about eliminating human interaction; it's about automating...

Welcome to Definitely Maybe Agile! In this episode, Peter Maddison and Dave Sharrock sit down with Barbara Whittmann, founder of the Digital Wisdom Collective, to explore how real organizational change happens from the middle out. Barbara shares her 25 years of experience fixing broken digital transformation projects and reveals why the "juicy middle" of organizations holds the key to su...

When Hanna Bauer's publishing business faced a perfect storm of budget cuts, industry disruption, and the ebook revolution, she learned that Six Sigma processes weren't enough. The real transformation required leading with heart. In this raw conversation, Hanna shares the wake-up call that changed everything: a top employee resigning to take a pay cut elsewhere. This crisis revealed the...

Hussein Hallak, serial entrepreneur and author of The Dark Art of Life Mastery, joins Peter Maddison and Dave Sharrock to talk about what really keeps entrepreneurs in the game. It's not resilience or grit, it's clarity about why you're doing this in the first place. The conversation covers the shift from pre-COVID to post-COVID startup communities, why watching customers do their w...

🚨 Struggling to implement Agile because you can't get dedicated cross-functional teams? You're not alone. In this episode, Dave Sharrock and Peter Maddison tackle one of the BIGGEST challenges facing late-adopter organizations: how to increase productivity and deliver value when dedicated teams just aren't in the cards. In this episode, we explore: Why the "dedicated team firs...

In this episode, hosts Peter Maddison and Dave Sharrock sit down with Nick Cawthon to explore how generative AI is revolutionizing the relationship between UX, design, and agile development. Key Topics: Embedding UX research into agile sprints, balancing short-term feedback loops with long-term strategic insights The "electric bicycle" analogy: How AI gives teams superpowers but can also...

Customer journey maps have been the standard for years. But what if they're built for a world that no longer exists? Dave and Peter challenge the linear, step-by-step approach to understanding customer experience. From showers on Emirates flights to adaptive payment systems, they explore why our traditional mapping tools might be keeping us from seeing breakthrough opportunities. What We Cove...

Can AI really shrink your development teams from two pizzas to one? Peter and Dave explore the promise and reality of smaller teams in the age of AI agents. While AI can handle documentation, test automation, and other "hygiene" tasks teams often skip, the real question isn't whether you can reduce team size, it's whether you should . They dig into when one-person teams make se...

I n this episode, Dave and Peter sit down with Radhika Dutt, author of "Radical Product Thinking: The New Mindset for Innovating Smarter," to explore why iteration-obsessed product development is failing organizations. Radhika shares hard-learned lessons from her 25-year career across diverse industries and five acquisitions, introducing the concept of "product diseases" like h...

When should you let AI agents loose on your processes, and when should you keep them on a tight leash? Peter and Dave explore the messy reality of using agentic AI for process improvement. They dig into why the processes you can easily map might not be the ones where AI agents add the most value. From recruitment pipelines that need human intuition to DevOps workflows that demand zero variation, n...