Lately, I've been talking about the strength of individual voices and how that
sets us up for a very different kind of future, a more
promising future, and I want you to be part of it. That's this
week on the Badass Agile Podcast.
Greetings, team. Welcome to the Badass Agile Podcast. I'm
your host, Chris Williams.
My friend, welcome. This show has always been about leadership.
It's always been about a special tribe of people who are excited and
ignited and fired up to do things differently in our industry.
And now times have changed. We're challenged, we're threatened, but you know what? It's a
whole different landscape from when I started. So it's time to reinvigorate
our tribal sense and to keep growing and strengthening what we've already
achieved. By becoming and staying badass. But first,
let's take a moment to remember why we're here. To create an elite tribe
of leaders who truly serve their clients and communities by doing
what matters and what works, relentlessly chasing value
and excellence like a badass. There's so many resources out
there about how to do agile, but we're focused on who you need to
become in order to lead teams. So let's hammer down those
fundamentals. To create a truly unique and powerful voice
in this industry. If you like this episode, if it got you fired up,
do me a favor, share it with your friends. Looking at where we are now,
where we were when I started this show 9 years ago, a confluence
of new and strange events have thrust us into irrevocable
change. First, it was probably the pandemic, and
then there was an economic crisis that followed. There's been rapid
shifts in power. The introduction of AI, and now a
completely new and revised world order. These times
call for different actions. We have to believe and behave in different ways.
But what do I see when I look around on Reddit, on LinkedIn, all the
big agile certification news points and the service companies out there
pushing their opinions? It's the same old stuff, isn't it? It's lots of advice,
most of it pedestrian, most of it rooted in 10 or 20-year-old
practices. There's no strategy, there's no action.
Companies don't seem to have gotten the point that what we need right now
is a new kind of courage, a different sort of bravery,
new mindsets, and different action to take us into the future.
And people, not just in Agile, mind you, right now feel
betrayed. In almost every role you can see around the
office, we feel somehow abandoned. We feel lost.
We feel that the work that we did, that we thought was purposeful,
ended up feeling disposable, invisible.
This is no way to live. And if we don't change it, we're
cooked. And to make matters worse, nobody's
coming to save you. People's first instinct seems to be to
chase the change or to resist it. When it comes to things like AI,
don't fear AI. AI represents change, but it's relatively
new. We're already noticing even at this early point, the human
intuition, human distinction, can't easily be
modeled, much less replaced. A writer I really like put
something in an email newsletter that I subscribe to today that I really liked. It's
this: when speed becomes cheap, judgment
carries a premium. So remember that the thing you're
good at, the thing that you studied for, the thing that you practiced, the thing
that you believed that you would've carried to your grave with you still
matters. It just doesn't feel like it in this present moment.
What's going to change that? Simple. Focus on the
one thing AI can never do, lead.
It's our time to build a tribe. We've
built one before, but it's time to change it. It's time to embrace
those principles based on, as I say, what works, what
we've seen in the industry. So when I say it's time to build a new
tribe, you can join this one with me, with us, this
uprising. This new movement, or you can build your own.
Either way, now's the time. We've waited long enough at
this point for our voices to matter at work, only to find out,
to realize that at this moment, they really don't. This is a planet of
8 billion people. Influence has moved too
far toward the center. The thing about the center is
it's boring, it's pedestrian, it's expectable,
and it's safe. So for example, this week on LinkedIn, what's the big
thing? Having AI draw your caricature. Everyone's doing
it. Follow the herd. Do what others do.
Do what's expected. Don't question why. Just don't
get left behind. But there is a better way, my friend.
It's not to follow the herd. It's to lead it. And
this is your call. Your experience is
mastery. And mastery is gold.
Mastery gets attention. It gets paid. It creates new wisdom.
It creates new directions. Add to this experience your
unique voice, your intuition, your DNA,
your unique abilities and philosophies. You've earned
those. You've earned something that few other people have. You
know how to transcend the stupid stuff that big teams at
scale can't seem to get around. So while the rest of us have
thrown up our hands and given up and admitted defeat, we're going
to do something different. Modern corporations are increasingly more and
more about control. Controlling people, yes, to an
extent, but also trying to control outcomes even if
they're uncontrollable. And that is about fake
certainty earned through scientific fancy estimation
methods or multi-screen dashboards that conceal a
truth that we all know, which is that we know
nothing. The only way to get real certainty is to
invest in failure, to experiment, to make attempts
until we gather enough data to be just a little more certain
than we were yesterday to fuel our forward
motion. And a new economy calls for a new agility.
And no one knows better what that is than
us. So don't be afraid that it doesn't look the same. Don't be
afraid that it doesn't feel clear. It won't look familiar.
It's not supposed to. That's what forging new ground
is all about. See, this isn't a time for comfort.
Comfort in this economy keeps you trapped, makes you
invisible. And it is hard to break some patterns.
To get companies to do differently, that's the real work
because Agile is simple. It was designed to be simple. It's built right
into the principles., but we typically haven't had a seat at the
table to show people how to actually be agile.
Our most noble efforts to affect change have been pushed under.
They've been drowned. They've been subverted. But this new
movement won't allow for that. The alternative, by the
way, is to say bye-bye to this thing that we've been doing for
5, 10, maybe 20 years, and to hope and pray that something
better just comes along. But I'm going to say it one more
time: it ain't coming. You have to drive it. Now, this
kind of call is not for everyone, but I have a suspicion if you
listen to this show, this probably sounds like
you. This is a moment. This is a call. It
is your season to rise. Freedom, fulfillment,
meaning are on the other side, and that's what I'm focusing on in
2026. So I'll bring you those insights and those stories as I explore
and fail if you've stuck with me this far, or if you're brand new to
the show, keep tuning in. Now, one last thing, as I'm
at it, I want to bring some new bold voices to the core, people other
than me, people who are doing great things in the name of agility, in
the name of better service. The first is a fellow I
want to introduce you to. He's from the States. He's doing great, great
brave work for the state of Minnesota around modernizing
legacy, disparate, and complex systems. This is
exactly the kind of thing that we hope Agile will help with, but it is
sometimes the least obvious candidate because it's hard, it's
challenging, it's tough to break through that legacy kind of thinking,
you know, where we do nothing unless we're certain about everything up front.
Anyway, his name is Kevin Sutherland. I'm going to post his YouTube
channel below. Check him out, and if you like him, subscribe and follow
him., but I also want you to check out the work he's been doing for
the great state of Minnesota. So there's a Vimeo link that
demonstrates a new way of taking a service-oriented
stakeholder, meaning the end client-oriented view
of providing better, faster service to the taxpayer.
You can see how they're using real agile principles, not scaled
agile principles, but how he's been encouraging his team,
the executive leadership, and even external vendors to work
and think differently. Now, this is the kind of stuff that could
change everything. So check them out. I'll have a different profile for you to look
at next week. In the meantime, you can find me at badassagile.com.
You can check out my products and services at
learning.fusechamber.com. Don't forget to follow me on
LinkedIn. I'll look forward to seeing you next time, my friend. And until
then, stay badass.