Pega’s VP of Product Management on how AI is ending the sprint, and why product managers are building again.

In this episode of Designed to Accelerate, Steph Louis and I sit down with Drew Piekarski, Vice President of Product Management at Pega, to talk about how AI is changing the way software gets built, from the first idea to production.

Drew shares how Pega’s product teams have moved from traditional Scrum to what they call “agentic engineering.” Product managers now prototype ideas themselves instead of writing user stories, sit side by side with developers, and measure success by the value delivered, not by story points. He’s also candid about the risks: when teams move this fast, misalignment can send you off course “further, faster.”

We discuss:

- Why product managers are the real solution designers, and why “you’re not the project manager”

- Replacing specs and grooming sessions with AI-built prototypes developers can react to

- Moving from two-week sprints to a weekly, continuous way of working, and whether burn-down charts still matter

- Keeping humans accountable for AI-written code, and turning senior developers into “player coaches”

- How Pega’s structured platform makes AI agents more reliable

- Practical advice for leaders starting with agentic engineering: get started, set guardrails, experiment in safe zones

⏱️ Chapters
00:00 Intro
00:56 Meet Drew Piekarski, VP Product Management at Pega
02:20 How AI is changing product management
05:36 What a product manager actuallyowns
08:52 “You’re not the project manager”
09:20 How PM and engineering work together now
11:12 Fewer ceremonies, faster feedback
13:30 Fixing the “death of a thousand cuts”
15:24 From Scrum to agentic engineering
16:48 The risk of going off course faster
18:40 Do burn-down charts go away?
20:04 Humans stay accountable for AI-written code
21:28 Which AI tools and agents Pega uses
23:20 Why Pega’s structure helps AI
25:40 How to get started with agentic engineering
29:00 Books and resources
30:20 Senior vs. junior developers and AI
34:00 Wrap-up

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About the Podcast
Designed to Accelerate, hosted by Clay Richardson andSteph Louis, explores how leaders design enterprise solutions that deliver real value through workflow automation, AI and intelligent platforms.

💬 Drew asked for your input: how is your team getting started with agentic engineering? Tell us in the comments or join the conversation here >.

#AgenticEngineering #ProductManagement #Pega #VibeCoding #EnterpriseAI

In this episode of Designed to Accelerate, Steph Louis and I sit down with Brooke Halloran — who leads Pega's Authorized Training Partner (ATP) Program — to unpack a shift that's easy to miss. AI isn't necessarily changing what your job is. It's changing how the work gets done, and it's changing it overnight. That forces a harder question than "which tool do we buy." It forces a rethink of how companies need to build skills and new capabilities in the AI era. We discuss:

• Why your title can stay the same while the tasks underneath it turn over overnight, and why that's more disruptive than a job disappearing
• Why "slapping AI on a title" or sprinkling a little AI skilling on top isn't enough, and what a real rethink of learning actually looks like
• The shift from rigorous certification to badging and "prove you can do it," and why passing a test was never the same as being able to do the job
• What grows in value as AI gets more capable: judgment, decision-making, facilitation, and the human context the tools still depend on — including the move from Business Architect to Solution Designer

Next Steps:📍 Join the next cohort of our Solution Design Accelerator Workshophttps://workshop.digitalfastforward.com📘 Request a complimentary copy of "The Ultimate Guide to Pega Value Acceleration"https://book.digitalfastforward.com

In this episode of Designed to Accelerate, Steph Louis and I sit down with Cornelius Pone—co-founder of Digital FastForward and a Lead System Architect with more than 25 years of experience across hundreds of Pega implementations—to explore why AI is transforming how enterprise delivery gets done.The biggest takeaway? AI doesn’t just change the tools—it changes the operating model. Delivery organizations can’t simply adopt AI. They need to redesign how they design solutions, organize teams, and deliver value.In this episode, we discuss:* Why adopting AI isn’t enough—and how AI is reshaping the roles of architects, developers, business analysts, and delivery teams.* Why coding is becoming commoditized, and how delivery organizations should rethink R&D, delivery, and maintenance to maximize value.* The difference between design time and run time, and why a vibe-coded application isn’t automatically ready for enterprise environments with governance and regulatory requirements.* How architects are evolving from technical gatekeepers into strategic advisors who help business leaders understand options, trade-offs, and business outcomes.Next Steps:📍 Join the next cohort of our Solution Design Accelerator Workshophttps://workshop.digitalfastforward.com📘 Request a complimentary copy of "The Ultimate Guide to Pega Value Acceleration"https://book.digitalfastforward.com