Agile Brigade

As LLMs radically change the way teams work, the role of the Scrum Master changes too. And this doesn't mean just using the intelligent tools in Miro to group stickies, devise fun new retrospective formats, make a sentiment analysis of retrospective comments, help arrange the backlog, enable sprint planning, or help support the creation of metrics for presentations. The Scrum Master role must evolve with the development process, upskilling and embedding themselves much more deeply with the team.

A core principle of the Agile Manifesto gains new meaning: individuals and interactions over processes and tools. As many organizations are chasing LLM coding as the New Shiny, and even mandating developers use LLMs a certain percentage of their time, the essential Scrum Master skills of team-building and human connection become even more important. It's too easy for devs to become disconnected, even isolated, in their new management role, orchestrating and running agents solo.

While Agile principles and values won't change, the shape and nature of Agile events and how they're carried out must. How can Scrum Masters evolve to meet this powerful moment? By adopting many of the behaviors and tactics of the Toyota Team Leader. Scrum Masters must reclaim their purpose as True Leaders, as Toyota Team Leaders do.

About the Speaker:

Fortune Buchholtz began as a Scrum Master in 2005 after working as a front-end developer. Over the years, she has also participated in a number of agile transformations, large and small, across diverse industries, ways of working and team types as a Scrum Master, an Agile Coach, a Sr. Enterprise agile coach, and recently, Head of Agile. Today she is an ICE-EC certified agilist, deeming herself "Toyota All the Time." Originally from San Francisco, CA, she now lives in Nottingham, England with her husband, a professor of computer science.

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AI tools are rapidly changing the software development lifecycle, but teams rarely get the full benefit by simply dropping new tools into existing ways of working. The bigger shift is operational: teams need to adapt how they plan, learn, experiment, and collaborate so they can make effective use of AI in day-to-day delivery.

This session explores how Agile workflows can evolve to support faster feedback loops, smaller and more testable units of work, clearer cross-functional collaboration, and more intentional experimentation as teams adopt AI-assisted development. The focus is on practical process changes that help teams learn quickly without losing alignment, quality, or delivery discipline.

Nick and John will share a joint perspective from Agile coaching and software engineering on how teams can refine their workflow to better support AI-enabled delivery: from how work is framed, to how experiments are run, to how teams inspect and improve their process as adoption matures. Attendees will leave with practical ideas for evolving their team’s workflow so AI becomes part of a sustainable delivery practice rather than a disconnected layer on top of it.

At the end, the session will briefly point to En Dash’s open-source n-dx toolkit as one example of this thinking in practice: a developer workflow that connects analysis, planning, and execution, with straightforward adoption for teams already using Claude Code or Codex. n-dx is designed as a CLI toolkit built around SourceVision, Rex, and Hench, and supports both Claude and Codex through its unified configuration and orchestration flow.

Nick, a co-founder and digital product leader, possesses over a decade of hands-on experience guiding product delivery, engineering execution, and Agile transformation.
With a background encompassing full-stack engineering and various client-facing roles—including Tech Lead, Product Owner, and UX/UI Designer—Nick excels at connecting technical depth with strong product judgment to improve end-user experiences.
His practical expertise covers design and engineering disciplines, utilizing tools such as Figma, Jira, and Confluence, and modern development stacks including React, Vue, and microservice architectures. He is known for his ability to work across functions, translate between business and technical perspectives, and foster continuous improvement within teams.

John, Head of Consulting Operations, is a strategic product, technology, and AI leader specializing in enterprise transformation, product development, and engineering modernization for complex organizations.
John’s experience, which includes prior roles as a CIO/CTO/VP of IT in Financial Services and Insurance and leading product and UX for AI/NLP platforms, allows him to operate at executive and hands-on levels, advising leadership while shaping product strategy and delivery models.
He focuses on aligning business strategy, product thinking, and engineering execution to help organizations adopt product-centric operating models, integrate AI responsibly, and improve how technology delivers value.
John brings deep expertise in AI-enabled platforms, cloud modernization, and enterprise delivery ecosystems, and is a published author on consulting, artificial intelligence, and governance.

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