In this eye-opening episode, Peter Maddison and David Sharrock dive deep into the hidden implications of AI-driven productivity gains. While everyone's talking about efficiency, they're asking the harder questions: Where does this new capacity actually go? Who decides how it gets used? And why might firing your junior developers be the worst possible strategy?
🎯 What You'll Discover:
The Capacity Paradox - Why creating more development capacity doesn't automatically solve your backlog problems (and might create new ones)
The Junior Developer Dilemma - The dangerous assumption that AI can replace your talent pipeline and why it could leave you high and dry in 5 years
Two Types of Change That Matter - Understanding Kaikaku (big step changes) vs Kaizen (continuous improvements) and why modern organizations need both
The Slack Time Secret - Why teams need "unproductive" time to innovate and maintain systems (and how to protect it from those who see it as wasteful)
Autonomy vs Control - The tension between organizational efficiency and team empowerment, and why trusting teams with capacity decisions drives better outcomes
⏰ Episode Timestamps:
0:00 Welcome and Change Introduction
1:37 AI's Impact on Work Capacity
4:03 Refactoring and Technical Debt
6:43 Capacity vs. Prioritization Challenges
8:25 Two Types of Change: Kaikaku and Kaizen
10:27 Autonomy, Slack, and Team Empowerment
14:10 Key Takeaways and Closing Thoughts
💡 Key Takeaways:
✅ Don't assume new capacity won't get consumed immediately ✅ Teams closest to the work make the best decisions about capacity allocation ✅ Slack time isn't waste – it's essential for system health and innovation ✅ OKRs can provide direction while preserving team autonomy ✅ There's always more work than capacity – the question is who decides what gets done
🔗 Connect With Us:
📧 Feedback: feedback@definitelymaybeagile.com🎙️ More episodes at [website]
Don't just adapt to change, learn to harness it strategically.
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