AI Intensifies Work — Food for Agile Thought #531

Welcome to the 531st edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 35,736 peers. This week, Aruna Ranganathan and Xingqi Maggie Ye found that AI intensifies work rather than reduces it, and Siddhant Khare describes how they paradoxically increase engineer exhaustion. Cleo Lant explores how product velocity overwhelms user adoption capacity, while Maarten Dalmijn argues that PUSH planning systems fail for complex work. Teresa Torres explains context rot in AI models, while Paweł Huryn shares architectural lessons from building Agent One as a secure alternative to OpenClaw.

Next, Jim Highsmith reflects on Agile’s 25 years, noting it won by reshaping delivery but lost by hardening into a set of ceremonies. David Pereira interviews John Cutler on product operating models and messy transformations, and Aakash Gupta and Caitlin Sullivan demonstrate AI discovery workflows that compress 10+ hours into 30 minutes. Also, Grant Harvey argues that AI collapsed execution, making taste and judgment critical. Azeem Azhar and Nathan Warren conclude that AI faces a capacity stampede as compute demand outpaces infrastructure.

Then, Reddit user morsofer describes how a new board dismantled 10 years of Agile transformation in 6 months. Michael Lopp examines three bad but successful managers and why adapting your approach matters. Additionally, Jenny Wanger explores how AI’s variable response latency fragments attention and breaks flow, and Andi Roberts shares mechanics for creating living team charters through observable behaviors. Finally, the DORA AI Capabilities Model identifies seven capabilities that amplify AI benefits.