Agile Mentors Podcast from Mountain Goat Software

In a world changing faster than most teams can keep up with, standing still may be the biggest risk of all. Brian Milner sits down with Stavros Stavru to explore why experimentation is no longer optional and how teams can build a culture that adapts before disruption forces it to.

 

Overview

Many organizations say they value experimentation, but few create the conditions that make real experimentation possible. Too often, teams either stay trapped in familiar patterns or mistake random change for meaningful learning.

In this episode, Brian Milner talks with Stavros Stavru, author of Never Stop Experimenting, about what experimentation actually looks like in practice. Stavros shares how rapid advances in AI and constant disruption are forcing teams to rethink how they learn, adapt, and improve. Together, they discuss the difference between experimentation and “experimentation theater,” why small experiments matter, and how leaders can model the kind of curiosity and adaptability they want their teams to develop.

Stavros also shares practical examples from his book, including simple ways teams can test assumptions, gather more honest feedback, and create stronger learning loops in their day-to-day work.

 

References and resources mentioned in the show:

Stavros Stavru
Never Stop Experimenting by Stavros Stavru, Ph.D.
#56: The Power of Experimentation
#118: The Secrets to Agile Success with Mike Cohn

When Do Agile Teams Make Time for Innovation? By Mike Cohn
Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast

 

Want to get involved?

This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input.

Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one.

Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at [email protected]

This episode’s presenters are:

Brian Milner is a Certified Scrum Trainer®, Certified Scrum Professional®, Certified ScrumMaster®, and Certified Scrum Product Owner®, and host of the Agile Mentors Podcast training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work.

Stavros Stavru is an organizational transformation researcher and Agile practitioner whose work focuses on helping teams create lasting alignment instead of temporary improvement. After two decades working with thousands of professionals across 500+ organizations, he founded AhaPlay to turn strategy and behavioral science into measurable team alignment without relying on facilitators.

Too many teams try to “do Agile” by adding layers of process before they understand the problem they’re trying to solve. In this episode, Brian Milner and Cort Sharp discuss how to start Agile simply, avoid unnecessary complexity, and build practices that actually fit your team.

 

Overview

When organizations first adopt Agile, they often make the same mistake: they start with frameworks, terminology, and process layers instead of focusing on visibility, feedback, and learning. The result is a system that feels heavy before it ever becomes useful.

In this episode, Brian Milner and Cort Sharp explore a more practical approach to getting started with Agile. They discuss why teams should focus on foundational concepts like transparency, short feedback loops, and clear priorities before worrying about scaling frameworks or advanced practices. Brian and Cort also share the common “drag factors” that slow Agile adoption down, including process overload, coordination complexity, and measuring the wrong outcomes.

If your team is trying to become more Agile without creating more bureaucracy, this episode offers a practical starting point.

 

References and resources mentioned in the show:

 

Cort Sharp
Introducing An Agile Process to an Organization by Mike Cohn + Doris Ford
Relationship between Definition of Done and Conditions of Satisfaction by Mike Cohn
Why Agile Teams Put So Much Emphasis on Being Done Each Iteration by Mike Cohn

Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast 

 

Want to get involved?

This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input.

  Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one.

  Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at [email protected]

This episode’s presenters are:

Brian Milner is a Certified Scrum Trainer®, Certified Scrum Professional®, Certified ScrumMaster®, and Certified Scrum Product Owner®, and host of the Agile Mentors Podcast training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. 

Cort Sharp is the Scrum Master of the producing team and the Agile Mentors Community Manager. In addition to his love for Agile, Cort is also a serious swimmer and has been coaching swimmers for five years.

Velocity can help a team plan, but it creates problems when leaders use it to judge performance. In this episode, Brian Milner and Scott Dunn explain why that shift happens so often and what leaders should pay attention to instead.

 

Overview

Velocity is one of the most misunderstood metrics in Agile. Used well, it helps a team forecast and make planning decisions. Used poorly, it becomes a productivity score that encourages inflated estimates, unhealthy comparisons, and a focus on output rather than value.

In this episode, Brian and Scott discuss why leaders often reach for velocity, why it gives them the wrong signal, and how teams can reconnect measurement to outcomes, learning, and business impact. They also explore how AI is making this issue more urgent by increasing delivery speed while putting even more pressure on leaders to ask whether teams are building the right things.

 

References and resources mentioned in the show:

Scott Dunn
#35: Metrics with Lance Dacy
Rethink the Refinement Session: Less Time, Better Outcomes by Mike Cohn
The Cost of Change Curve Is Outdated by Mike Cohn
Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast 

 

Want to get involved?

This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input.

  Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one.

  Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at [email protected]

 

This episode’s presenters are:

Brian Milner is a Certified Scrum Trainer®, Certified Scrum Professional®, Certified ScrumMaster®, and Certified Scrum Product Owner®, and host of the Agile Mentors Podcast training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. 

Scott Dunn is a Certified Enterprise Coach and Scrum Trainer with over 20 years of experience coaching and training companies like NASA, EMC/Dell Technologies, Yahoo!, Technicolor, and eBay to transition to an agile approach using Scrum.

Many agile struggles don’t start with the team. They start with leadership decisions that seem reasonable but create friction, confusion, or misalignment over time. In this episode, Mike Cohn outlines the patterns that most often hold organizations back and what leaders can do differently.

 

Overview

In this episode, Brian Milner and Mike Cohn examine the leadership decisions that most often derail agile efforts. Rather than focusing on team-level practices, the conversation centers on how leadership behavior shapes outcomes across the organization.

Mike highlights several recurring issues: treating agile as a process change instead of a mindset shift, scaling before understanding what works, limiting product owner authority, and prioritizing speed over focus. He also addresses how well-intentioned leadership actions can unintentionally slow teams down or create dependency.

The discussion emphasizes that agile is not something leaders delegate. It requires changes in how leaders make decisions, set boundaries, and engage with teams. When those changes do not happen, teams may follow the motions of agile without seeing meaningful improvement.

If your organization is “doing agile” but not seeing the expected results, this episode offers a practical way to assess where leadership decisions may be contributing to the problem—and where to adjust first.

 

References and resources mentioned in the show:

Mike Cohn
#118: The Secrets to Agile Success with Mike Cohn
#143: What Still Makes Teams Work (and Win) with Jim York
Why Teams Matter More Than Ever for Innovation by Mike Cohn
How To Fail With Agile: Twenty Tips to Help You Avoid Success by Mike Cohn + Clinton Keith
Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast 

 

Want to get involved?

This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input.

  Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one.

  Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at [email protected]

This episode’s presenters are:

Brian Milner is a Certified Scrum Trainer®, Certified Scrum Professional®, Certified ScrumMaster®, and Certified Scrum Product Owner®, and host of the Agile Mentors Podcast training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. 

Mike Cohn, CEO of Mountain Goat Software, is a passionate advocate for agile methodologies. Co-founder of Agile Alliance and Scrum Alliance, he thrives on helping companies succeed with Agile and witnessing its transformative impact on individuals' careers. Mike resides in Northern Idaho with his family, two Havanese dogs, and an impressive hot sauce collection.

AI isn’t just speeding up coding. It’s starting to change how teams work, what they build, and even who needs to be involved. In this episode, Brian and Hunter separate real impact from hype and explore what’s already shifting inside teams.

 

Overview

AI tools are improving fast, but what does that actually mean for teams doing the work?

In this episode, Brian Milner sits down with Hunter Hillegas, CTO of Mountain Goat Software, to explore how AI is being used today inside real software teams. They dig into where these tools are genuinely accelerating work, from coding agents and automated testing to analyzing large data sets and reducing friction in everyday tasks. They also unpack the growing shift from writing code to reviewing it, and what that means for developers and team dynamics.

At the same time, they address the gap between hype and reality. Where does AI perform well, and where does it still fall short? What happens when adoption is pushed top-down without clarity? And how might AI start to reshape roles, collaboration, and expectations across a team?

This is a practical, honest look at what’s changing right now, where to start if you’re new to these tools, and how to think about AI as part of your team without losing sight of how real teams actually work.

 

References and resources mentioned in the show:

 

Hunter Hillegas
Mountaingoat Software’s AI Toolkit
#82: The Intersection of AI and Agile with Emilia Breton
#169: Building Practical AI for Agile Teams with Hunter Hillegas
#175: When AI Makes Agile Teams Worse with Hunter Hillegas
AI Doesn’t Eliminate Agile Teams — It Increases the Need for Great Ones by Mike Cohn
How to Use AI for Product Discovery and Writing Better User Stories by Mike Cohn

Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast 

 

Want to get involved?

This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input.

  Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one.

  Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at [email protected]

This episode’s presenters are:

Brian Milner is a Certified Scrum Trainer®, Certified Scrum Professional®, Certified ScrumMaster®, and Certified Scrum Product Owner®, and host of the Agile Mentors Podcast training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. 

Hunter Hillegas is the Chief Technology Officer at Mountain Goat Software. With over 20 years of experience in software development, product ownership, and team leadership, he leads the creation of tools like the AI Toolkit and Team Home to support effective, engaging learning experiences. Hunter lives in Santa Barbara, California, with his wife and their dog Enzo.