#129: 2025: The Year Agile Meets AI and Hyper-Personalization with Lance Dacy

#129: 2025: The Year Agile Meets AI and Hyper-Personalization with Lance Dacy

Author: Mountain Goat Software January 8, 2025 Duration: 43:15
Curious about the future of Agile in 2025? Join Brian and Lance Dacy as they dive into the rise of AI, hyper-personalization, and how teams can balance innovation with customer focus. Plus, discover actionable insights to navigate a rapidly evolving landscape—don’t miss this forward-looking discussion! Overview In this episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast, Brian and Lance set their sights on 2025, exploring how AI is transforming Agile practices and reshaping customer engagement. They discuss the shift from output to outcome metrics, the expansion of Agile beyond IT, and the critical role of leadership agility. With practical takeaways on fostering continuous learning and delivering real value, this episode equips teams and leaders to stay ahead in a fast-changing world. References and resources mentioned in the show: Lance Dacy Accurate Agile Planning Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast Advanced Certified Scrum Product Owner® Advanced Certified ScrumMaster® Mountain Goat Software Certified Scrum and Agile Training Schedule Join the Agile Mentors Community 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 podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and 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. Lance Dacy is a Certified Scrum Trainer®, Certified Scrum Professional®, Certified ScrumMaster®, and Certified Scrum Product Owner®. Lance brings a great personality and servant's heart to his workshops. He loves seeing people walk away with tangible and practical things they can do with their teams straight away. Auto-generated Transcript: Brian (00:00) Happy New Year's Agile Mentors. We are back and a very happy New Year's to everyone who's listening. Welcome back for another episode and another new year of the Agile Mentors podcast. I'm with you as always, Brian Milner, and we have our friend of the show for our annual kind of tradition now. We have Mr. Lance Dacey back with us. Welcome in, Lance. Lance Dacy (00:23) Thank you, Brian. Happy New Year to all of y'all. Happy to be setting this tradition. think it's two times now, so we'll just call it a tradition, but I love it. Thank you for having me. Brian (00:32) Very glad to have you here. The tradition we're referring to is that we like to take the first episode of the new year and just take a pause and kind of look ahead a little bit. What do we see coming up? What do we think this new year is going to be like? Obviously, it's a year of change. Here in the US, we'll have a new president that comes in. I'm not going to get into whether you like that or not, but it's new. It's going to be a change. There's going to be differences that take place. And I know there's a lot of differences and changes going on just in the way businesses operate and how things are run and lots of new technologies, lots of new trends. So we just thought we'd take a pause and kind of scan the horizon and maybe give you our take at least on what we're hearing and what we're seeing. And you can see if you agree with these or not. We'd love to hear from you in our discussion forum on the Agile Mentors Community afterwards if you have other thoughts or opinions on this. let's get into it. Let's start to talk about this. So Lance, I guess I'll start. I'll just turn it over to you and ask you that generalized question. Give me one point or one thing that you've been reading or seeing recently that you think is going to be a really important thing for us to kind of be p

Hosted by Mountain Goat Software, the Agile Mentors Podcast is a conversation for anyone involved in or curious about agile practices. It’s a space where the philosophy meets the practical, moving beyond theory to tackle the real-world challenges teams face every day. You’ll hear discussions that dig into the nuances of Scrum, Kanban, and other frameworks, exploring how they adapt to different environments and scale. The dialogue often focuses on the human side of change-how to foster better collaboration, navigate organizational hurdles, and cultivate a genuinely agile mindset rather than just going through the motions. This podcast serves as a resource for continuous learning, whether you're troubleshooting a specific sprint issue or looking for fresh perspectives to reinvigorate your approach. Each episode aims to provide actionable insights and thoughtful reflection, making the complex landscape of modern software development feel more accessible and manageable. Tune in for honest talk from experienced practitioners who understand that agility is a journey, not a destination.
Author: Language: en-us Episodes: 100

Agile Mentors Podcast from Mountain Goat Software
Podcast Episodes
#179: Leadership Decisions That Quietly Derail Agile with Mike Cohn [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 29:35
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 m…
#178: How AI Is Actually Changing Software Teams with Hunter Hillegas [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 29:24
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 sh…
#177: The 5 Habits of High Learning Teams with Lance Dacy [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 36:45
Most teams say they want to improve. Few actually build the habits that make it happen. In this episode, Brian and Lance break down what separates teams that learn from teams that stall—and what leaders do that quietly g…
#176: Why Most Product Organizations Struggle with Jason Knight [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 34:42
Many product teams are busy, but not necessarily effective. Brian Milner talks with product consultant Jason Knight about why so many organizations struggle with prioritization, customer insight, and measuring success—an…
#175: When AI Makes Agile Teams Worse with Hunter Hillegas [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 27:32
AI can make teams faster. But it can also quietly make them worse. In this episode, Brian Milner and Hunter Hillegas dig into the risks no one wants to talk about—from eroding developer judgment to weakening team communi…
#174: Why Estimating Still Matters with Mike Cohn [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 36:14
Estimating can bring out strong reactions, and for good reason. Mike Cohn and Brian Milner unpack why it gets misused, what “estimate responsibly” really means, and how to use planning to make better decisions without tu…
#173: Hiring for Agile Roles That Actually Work with Cort Sharp [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 39:28
Hiring for Scrum roles is harder than it looks. Making the wrong call can derail an Agile transformation before it even starts. In this episode, Brian and Cort unpack what to actually look for in Scrum Masters, Product O…
#172: The Five Pillars of Agile Transformation with Mike Cohn [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 32:30
Most agile transformations start with energy, and then stall out when things get complex. In this episode, Mike Cohn returns with a practical framework to help teams and leaders spot what’s missing, build lasting momentu…
#171: Why Agile Teams Succeed—or Don’t with Colin Fisher [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 34:02
Most teams aren’t broken because of individual incompetence. They’re struggling because the group itself isn’t set up to thrive. In this episode, author and researcher Colin Fisher joins Brian to reframe how we think abo…
#170: Leadership Lessons from the Marine Corps with Tanner Wortham [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 30:11
What can Agile leaders learn from the Marines? In this episode, Tanner Wortham joins Brian to share how principles of military leadership—like building authority into the trenches, experimenting under pressure, and prior…