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We talk constantly about "maximizing value" in agility — but what actually is value? This post draws sharp lines between value and the things often mistaken for it (inputs, activities, unreleased outputs), explores the multiple perspectives value can flow from, and explains why forecasting value is always relative, context-sensitive, and only truly realized when something gets used.

The 2020 Scrum Guide brought some important shifts — and 18 of them stand out. This piece runs through what's new and what changed: from customers and end-users finally getting explicit mentions, to "Developers" replacing the Development Team (long live one team), to experimentation getting an explicit nod. The Sprint Goal and Definition of Done both found proper homes as commitments. The Scrum Master is no longer called a "servant leader" but is now on the hook for the effectiveness of the Scrum Team. Product Owners get a new Product Goal as their commitment to the Product Backlog. Self-managing teams replace self-organizing ones (in the Hackman sense), Sprint Planning now has three topics instead of two, and Scrum Teams cap at 10 members. Plus a few subtler shifts — the word "consistency" makes an appearance, stakeholders get mentioned twice as often, and feedback gives way to collaboration on what to do next. Overall verdict: a solid update.

The 2020 Scrum Guide elevated "commitment" beyond the artifacts themselves, attaching the Product Goal, Sprint Goal, and Definition of Done to give teams clearer focus and transparency. This post unpacks what each commitment really means, how they differ in "hardness," and why — when navigating complexity — striving toward a direction of travel matters more than guaranteeing an outcome.

A direct message to executives: you already know there are many reasons to pursue agility — but kicking the can down the road, diluting its effects, or arranging agility within each function won't get you there. Complexity calls for simplicity, not best practice. So why not inspire your people to move with you?

Tameflow, Scrum with Kanban, the Kanban Method, Kanban – the Flow Strategy, Kanplexity, Enterprise Flow, Flight Levels, Vanguard Method, and Paddy Irish Man walk into a bar. What follows is a satirical send-up of the flow methods landscape, where each approach orders a drink — and reveals its personality in the process. Tameflow obsesses over constraints. Scrum with Kanban won't compromise the goal. The Kanban Method declares itself the chosen one. Flight Levels wants air traffic control. Vanguard Method wants the backlogs gone. WIP Limits is the bar manager. And Paddy Irish Man just wants five Guinness before closing time. By the end of the night, fever charts are out, walls are being painted "Scrum," and Cynefin walks in to declare who's right — without explaining why. A loving roast of an industry that takes itself a little too seriously.

What got you here won't get you there. Marshall Goldsmith's line cuts to the heart of why executives need a different playbook for the 2020s than the one that guided managers a century ago. Everyone has heard the stories of firms that got disrupted out of business — and as W. Edwards Deming put it, "survival is optional." This piece offers five tips for leaders who want to actually let agility take root: be customer-centric and look hard enough to find the problems (naked transparency is ugly, but if there are no problems, you're not looking); don't impose agility, because installed agility without continuous improvement isn't agility anyway; keep the plumbing clean by treating every work item as a bet, making small parallel bets, and finishing before starting; be careful with measurement (and consider how you'd measure the number of inspired people); and invite people in instead of telling them what to do. Be ruthless about value, compassionate about people.

What is organizational agility? After getting debugged by attendees at a PAL-E workshop in London, this piece offers two evolving definitions — a non-climate-change version and a climate-change version — to capture what agility looks like, feels like, and aims to do. Both share a core: the ability to drive disruption through more effectiveness, more frequency-of-impact, more quality, more learning, fewer impediments, more flow, more efficiency, and more sustainability. Both are about small cognitively-diverse cross-skilled cross-functional teams. Both feel like more invitation and less imposition, more sincerity, more psychological safety, leaders embracing uncertainty, and (yes) more fun. The climate-change version goes further — adding caring about planet earth, shared purpose that isn't all about customers and money, and engagement with society itself. A required skillset for the 21st century, regardless of specialty or function.

How do you measure organizational agility? Honest answer: I haven't fully figured it out yet — but here's the story, in all its ugliness. This piece walks through a real-world attempt to define organizational agility in a way that left no one off the hook, then translate that definition into measures that actually meant something. Why activity measures are a trap. Why proxy measures are dangerous. Why comparing teams is the road to gaming. The "BS detector" used to validate the numbers, the four key trends that emerged from the telemetry (including the brutal one — that only 20% of people believed leaders were doing anything about delivery issues), and the surprising suggestion from a wise man that maybe the right thing to measure is the number of inspired people, even if they leave. A candid look at what worked, what didn't, and why context is king.