Comment on the ‘Agile Transformation’ book by Neil Perkin by Beata Mosór.

Neil Perkin’s book ‘Agile Transformation’ is an excellent summary of mature Agile. Published in 2020, nearly 20 years after the Agile Manifesto, it highlights and adds process, structural, and visualization elements to the key aspects of the method, which, at its core (contrary to the opinions of many), is fundamentally rooted in structure, process, and visualization.

Reading it in the age of AI and VUCA, it is hard not to feel that Agile was not only a response to the challenges of a changing world but also reshaped the world to prepare it for even greater challenges and acceleration. How?

• By changing linear thinking to circular thinking (e.g., switching from the Waterfall process to loops like Build-Measure-Learn or the PDCA cycle).
• By changing organizational structures from linear, vertical, or even tabular-matrix forms to more circular ones (e.g., Team Onion, Networks, or Tribes).
• By increasing transparency within organizations, which stimulates strategic and decision-making processes and builds an engaged team of leaders.
• By entrusting decision-making processes to the team based on trust, enabling the democratization and acceleration of processes.
• By building organizations around a deep purpose, vision, and values, which increases loyalty and supports the creation of autonomous, decentralized teams.

The changes described by Neil Perkin are numerous—it is not my goal to summarize them all. These elements can be viewed as part of a broader shift in the world. For me, however, Agile serves as a type of preparation for businesses for the upcoming acceleration of AI.

Agile & AI Transformation & Organizational Structure

One of the best examples of the relationship between Agile and AI is organizational structure. In 2016, as a co-founder of Project: People (a lean strategic agency), I designed its structure from the start in a circular way. This stemmed from my experience with Lean, but it also naturally reflected how the team was organizing itself. This structure evolved many times—even at one point adopting a vertical form (sic!).

Later, I often designed circular organizations for clients as well as my own companies, some of which were based on DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) principles. Examples:

As someone connected to technological products, I could not fail to notice how these circular team structures align with how AI agent teams operate.

The example of ten AI agents with different roles collaboratively writing a book, known from GitHub, perfectly reflects this.

In my essay ‘Why AI & Circular Connection Is So Important?‘, I write about why AI and Agile are inseparable. Why? As businesses aiming to face the challenges of the new world, we must better communicate with AI agents—collaborate with them and communicate.

Would you like to make your organizational structure more circular? Check https://www.circmodel.com/

Agile Preparation for the AI World

The other “qualities” I mentioned at the beginning of this epilogue are also reflected as key elements in preparing to operate in the world of AI:

• Transitioning thinking from linear to circular: AI naturally thinks in a circular manner, whereas we humans must shift our thinking to become more circular, and Agile prepares us for this.
• Increasing transparency: AI does not recognize boundaries set by humans; in the world of AI, everything will be transparent. Concepts of privacy and copyright will fundamentally change.
• Entrusting decision-making processes to the team based on trust: Giving orders to AI agents, who are much smarter than humans, would simply be foolish. Similarly, as a leader, if you block smarter individuals with commands, you limit your team’s potential—the same applies to AI agents.
• Building organizations based on a deep purpose, vision, and values: Defining these key elements of an organization’s actions, but also for prompts, RAGs, and actions, proves crucial for AI’s proper functioning.

From the perspective of 20 years in technology, I believe that only by accelerating Agile—and taking it to an even higher level of circularity—can we face the challenges brought by AI. This is crucial for the survival of the world as we know it and adapting to the societal changes that are coming.

AI, perceived as a technology, is a tool in human hands. However, early experiments with AI agents have shown that it is not merely a technology but a new species, completely changing the dynamics of the world we know.

Will it end at Agile Transformation?

First and foremost, we are transitioning from a human-centered world (human-centered approach) to living in a multi-species world where humans are no longer the greatest force. As a result, the factors determining the survival of both businesses and people in this world will also change (e.g., superintelligence and empathy, as well as the ability to communicate with AI, will ensure survival).

We are facing changes in monetary policy (it is speculated that the new currency will be time or energy, or perhaps quantum). Traditional resources considered valuable (e.g., fossil fuels) will cease to be key and will be replaced by intellectual and energy resources, as well as hardware.

Global economic changes

There is a shift in financial systems: current financial markets are highly speculation-oriented, being detached from real value (e.g., gold). AI may only accelerate this effect. Modern financial markets (e.g., cryptocurrencies) are based on technologies connecting the energy market with financial and other markets, such as transportation, giving them a reflection of real value.

A change is also occurring in languages: we will work on how to communicate with AI and other species—preserving old languages but also creating new ones.

We already see changes in privacy, transparency, and cybersecurity: AI does not recognize concepts of boundaries, privacy, or restricted access to data and information.

This also represents a change in the labor market. Trends already visible are accelerating, but on a much larger scale. As humans, we are rethinking our “why.” For many years, work was the center of our universe (we worked an average of 40 hours a week in modern European societies, though in Asia it remains over 60+ hours weekly). Now, thanks to robotics and AI, it would be possible to reduce this significantly—perhaps even to the 4-hour workweek known from Tim Ferriss’s book.

AI also enables financial democratization and a redefinition of wealth. Increasingly, we see the first “solo entrepreneurs” achieving extraordinary financial results thanks to AI support and their unique skills.

Summary

It is hard to escape the impression that Agile transformation perfectly prepares us for the challenges of this world and is inseparably linked to it. Will AI help accelerate Agile? Or is it Agile that enables AI’s acceleration? We may find the answer to this question in a few years, looking back—just as we now reflect on 20 years of Agile. Or perhaps it will not be us humans who find the answer to this question, but AI itself.

Would you like to redesign your organizational structure to make it more circular? Check https://www.circmodel.com/