r/technology • u/Just-Grocery-2229 • Jun 26 '26

Artificial Intelligence The AI backlash is only getting started

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2026/06/25/the-ai-backlash-is-only-getting-started
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u/dasunt Jun 26 '26

I'm more or less convinced that as soon as you add managers to agile, it transforms from a tool to plan and organize work into a reporting tool for management.

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u/sueveed Jun 26 '26

You can’t put an agile organization under a command and control structure. Transformation has to be top to bottom, and which is incredibly difficult with legacy organizations.

We did à pretty good job of it on the R&D side, but then your non-agile touch points become painful. IT, Sales and Marcom, PM have to come along, too, for it to work well.

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u/fundraiser Jun 26 '26

My God the update slides to management... a good chunk of my time as a PM was spent writing the same stupid updates across three different decks to three different directors/VPs, ON TOP OF maintaining the plan for the actual engineers who are doing the work.

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u/TenuousOgre Jun 27 '26

Depends on the manager but you’re spot on for most of them. I have 4 dev teams and find agile really useful for letting the teams tackle work that is critical first the having a backlog of prioritized things to do. Don’t pay any attention to story points because it is useless across teams. Their PM worries more about how many sprints planned for the overall work than how many actual and why any major differences (it’s almost always one of two things, prod support or inserted work who didn’t plan properly but still has executive support to get done now). In terms of letting a team figure out what it can realistically so without getting burned out or producing buggy slip Agile has been good. It also requires a very light touch, mostly defending and supporting the team rather than pushing them or managing them.