In this engaging conversation, Jim Sammons interviews David Picciuto, a content creator and artist with a background in tech. They explore topics like audience building, product creation, the impact of social media, and the future of content in the age of AI, offering valuable insights for creators and entrepreneurs.

David's Site - https://makesomething.com/

David's YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/@MakeSomething
David's art exhibition link - https://www.facebook.com/events/824417793474488/824417800141154/?active_tab=about&rdid=LhU2vlGENfrG7IEA
Giant Cassette Tape - https://youtu.be/jExRIl7WBPs?si=NNiHBl_RiLA-c89D

In this conversation, Jim Sammons and Rich Visotcky discuss various aspects of team dynamics, particularly focusing on Scrum Masters and the importance of engagement and interest in work. We explore the expectations placed on Scrum Masters, the significance of caring about the work being done, and how to navigate conflicts within teams around their work, tool choice, communication patterns, and more.

Key highlights include:

• Interest in work drives better performance and outcomes.
• Navigating conflict requires understanding the context.
• Caring about the work leads to better results.
• Frustrations in work often stem from organizational decisions.
• Shifting mindsets from tool dependency to problem-solving is crucial.
• Different teams require different types of support and skills.

Chapters

00:00 Intro

00:16 Should Scrum Masters Be Interested?

01:23 Do Process People Need to Grasp The Backlog?

04:48 Do Care and Interest Go Hand in Hand?

08:14 Marker 4

08:14 Did the Creators of Agility Expect People to Care?

10:56 Do You Need to Know How the Sausage is Made?

13:41 The Legend of "Json the Troublemaker"

18:25 It's Not Them, It's You

21:39 The Way of Working

26:30 What Gets You Riled Up?

29:49 It Makes Sense, and it Makes Me Angry

34:52 The "User" Will See You Now

37:03 What Riles Rich Up?

42:35 Part of the Solution?

46:29 On the Next Episode...

Connect with Product Fields:

📢 Follow the podcast for more inspiring stories
💬 Join the conversation on LinkedIn - https://linkedin.com/company/mastering-agility

📩 Contact us for trades or sponsorships

👉 If you enjoyed this episode, leave a review and share it with someone who needs to hear it!

Connect with our hosts:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamessammons/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/richvisotcky/

Check out our sponsors:

https://www.xebia.com

https://www.wiserbees.com

https://www.jointinsights.com

https://www.productfields.com

Gil Broza joins our hosts, Jim Sammons and Rich Visotcky, for the first episode of the Product Fields podcast in 2026! In this conversation, we discuss the evolving landscape of agility and product management in the age of AI. Together, we explore how AI has transformed product delivery, the importance of accountability, and the need for leaders to adapt their strategies to ensure effective team dynamics. Too often, we have seen companies go full-on into AI without any strategy or understanding of the consequences. Through our discussion, we dive into the balance between leveraging AI for efficiency while maintaining critical thinking and human oversight, and the need for a thoughtful approach to integrating AI into work processes.

00:00:00 Intro

00:02:04 Agility Beyond Tech: Adapting Principles for Non-Tech Teams

00:03:44 The Relevance of the Agile Manifesto, Values, and Principles

00:08:44 AI's Impact on Product Delivery and Management

00:12:15 Going Back to Principles in the Age of AI

00:16:52 Accountability in the Age of AI

00:28:03 The AI Industrial Revolution: Trust and Human Connection

00:33:58 The Atrophy of Skills in the Age of AI

00:35:07 The Impact of AI on Communication and Authenticity

00:45:38 The Dangers of Over-Reliance on AI

00:47:27 Fundamentals in the Age of AI

00:50:45 The Danger of Agency and AI

00:53:01 The Future of Work and AI Integration

00:57:46 Quantity vs. Impact

01:01:20 Closing

Connect with Product Fields:

📢 Follow the podcast for more inspiring stories
💬 Join the conversation on LinkedIn - https://linkedin.com/company/mastering-agility
📩 Contact us for trades or sponsorships

👉 If you enjoyed this episode, leave a review and share it with someone who needs to hear it!

Connect with our guests:

Gil Broza: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gilbroza

Subscribe to Gil’s newsletter: https://3pvantage.com/subscribe-newsletter/

Attend Gil’s course, “Leading AI-Enabled Product Teams”: https://3pvantage.com/leapt/

Check out our sponsors:

https://www.xebia.com

https://www.wiserbees.com

https://www.jointinsights.com

https://www.productfields.com

Join hosts Rich Visotcky and Jim Sammons as they delve deep into the agile mindset and its significance in team dynamics from a research-backed perspective. Joining them in this episode are Dr. Karen Eilers and Christiaan Verwijs who are leading studies exploring the agile mindset from the individual and team level. Through their research and the help of Columinity, they describe how to factors like motivation, morale, collaborative exchange, value focus, and management support improve team effectiveness. Together, we discuss the development of reliable measurement scales, the importance of data in understanding team effectiveness in order to take action, and the challenges of selection bias and trust in survey data. We also dip our toes into the pools of dynamic reteaming and its effects on team cohesion and team outcomes.

Whether you’re a manager looking to help your teams hit their stride, a team member trying to understand how to improve yourself to improve those around you, or a research and data junkie curious about people and teams, this episode has you covered!

Want to learn more about your team and the research?

Participate (and get immediate actionable feedback!): https://questionnaire.columinity.com/setup/model/agilemindset

Preliminary findings: https://blog.columinity.com/how-a-team-level-agile-mindset-shapes-team-effectiveness/

Scientific paper on Agile Mindset: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0040162522001822

Contact Columinity: https://columinity.com/research

Connect with our guests:

Karen Eilers: linkedin.com/in/dr-karen-eilers/

Christiaan Verwijs: linkedin.com/in/christiaanverwijs/

Connect with Mastering Agility:

📢 Follow the podcast for more inspiring stories
💬 Join the conversation on LinkedIn - linkedin.com/company/mastering-agility
📩 Contact us for trades or sponsorships

👉 If you enjoyed this episode, leave a review and share it with someone who needs to hear it!

Check out our sponsors:

www.xebia.com

www.wiserbees.com

www.jointinsights.com

www.productfields.com

Find more at www.masteringagility.org

Abstract:

When creating any sort of product, it's important to understand whether we are moving in the right direction. But how do we know that? How do we measure that? And what metrics do we use for that? Agile organizations know that frequent inspection of results limits risk and improves the ability to deliver value. Scrum.org created a complementary framework called Evidence-Based Management. Patricia Kong is here to talk about how we can use EBM to elevate our ability to deliver value.

What you’ll discover in this show:

- You don’t need to apply the whole framework at once

- The Evidence-Based Management framework provides a great set of metrics to start with

- Four Key Value Areas help organizations and teams to gather quantifiable data in order to figure out what to do next

Speakers:

Patricia Kong

Organizational Agility, Innovation, Product Ownership | Speaker * Author * Coach * Instructor

Patricia Kong is co-author of "The Nexus Framework for Scaling Scrum" published by Pearson and a well-known public speaker and mentor. She is a co-developer of the Evidence-Based Management Framework for Business Agility and Nexus Framework for Scaling Scrum. Patricia helps organizations thrive in a complex world by focusing on enterprise innovation and leadership and teams. She is a people advocate and fascinated by organizational behavior and misbehaviors. She emerged through the financial services industry and has led product development, product management and marketing for several early stage companies in the US and Europe. Patricia is experienced working with 1$B+ clients focusing on business development and delivery engagements. Patricia lived in France and now lives in her hometown of Boston. Patricia is fluent in 4 languages.

Contact Patricia Kong:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/patricia-kong-2238232/
https://twitter.com/pmoonk88?lang=en

Sander Dur (host)

Scrum Master, Agile Coach, trainer, and podcast host for ‘Mastering Agility”

Sander Dur is a business agility enthusiast, with a passion for people. Whether it’s healthy product development, agile leadership, measurement, or psychological safety, Sander has the drive to enable organizations to the best of their abilities. He is an avid article writer, working on a book about Scrum Mastery from the Trenches, and is connecting listeners with the most influential people in the industry.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sanderdur/
https://agilitymasters.com/en
https://sander-dur.medium.com/

Additional resources:

To learn more about Evidence-Based Management, check out the guide: https://www.scrum.org/resources/evidence-based-management-guide

For Scrum.org’s EBM certification, check it out right here:
https://www.scrum.org/assessments/professional-agile-leadershiptm-evidence-based-management-certification

Contact us at:

Masteringagility.org
https://xebia.com/academy/nl/trainers/sander-dur

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamessammons/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sanderdur/

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

If you have questions or requests that you would like us to check on, please drop a message on LinkedIn or join the Mastering Agility Discord community!

Mastering Agility Mural

Sander Dur (host)

Scrum Master, Agile Coach, trainer, and podcast host for ‘Mastering Agility”

Sander Dur is a Professional Scrum Trainer at Scrum.org, podcast host of Mastering Agility, Professional Scrum Master and Lead Agile Consultant, and trainer at Xebia. Besides this, he's an avid writer for predominantly Serious Scrum on Medium.com. Sander has a major passion for the human side in complex domains. Ensuring a high level of psychological safety, therefore, is a critical part of his work. Organizations in complex domains can only survive when innovating. Innovation can only take place with the right balance between low social friction and high intellectual friction. While most organizations now understand how to apply Agile frameworks, they struggle with the delivery of value. Psychological safety is the next step in this evolution and Sander has a huge drive to help organizations reach that step.

He gained experience as a Scrum Master, Agile Coach, and Leadership consultant in many different top-tier organizations, including Nike and ASML.

Sander is enthusiastic, open-minded, and ambitious. He finds interpersonal relationships and intrinsic motivations very important in team dynamics. Besides his work, Sander loves to spend time with his family, enjoys sports and eating healthy, barbecuing, riding his motorcycle, and traveling.

Let’s connect! Sander is always up for new connections and discussions!

Masteringagility.org
https://xebia.com/academy/nl/trainers/sander-dur

Jim Sammons

My passion is helping people to:

• Do more of the right work (and less of the wrong work).
• Create more actual teams than just groups of people who work together.
• Learning how to improve themselves, their team, and their organization incrementally.
• Understand that less, not more, is usually part of the answer to some of the hardest questions we all face.
• See their workplaces, teams, and their sphere of influence as something that is evolving, which requires an evolution of all of its parts to adapt.

Throughout my career, I have worked with clients of all sizes, industries, and technologies. Whether it’s leading a transformative strategy at a Fortune 100 or helping a new startup understand its unique value proposition the common focus I bring to each role is “making people better.” I strive to help those around me improve through mentorship, training, workshops, or just grabbing a coffee and lending an ear to their experiences. This focus on continuous improvement and servant leadership is why I love what I do each day.

In my spare time, I enjoy making things out of wood, metal, and other materials (like coffee). I also enjoy hiking, board games, jigsaw puzzles, and playing with my Golden Doodle puppy Roxy (agile is her middle name), and I am usu

Contact us at:

Masteringagility.org
https://xebia.com/academy/nl/trainers/sander-dur

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamessammons/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sanderdur/

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

In this gripping episode, Sander and Jim sit down with Arjan Erkel, who shares his harrowing experience of being kidnapped and held hostage for 607 days in Dagestan. Arjan walks us through the terrifying moment of his abduction, the psychological battles he faced in captivity, and the resilience that helped him survive. He also discusses his remarkable mindset shift, the unexpected relationships he built with his captors, and how he reclaimed his life after being freed.

Beyond his personal story, Arjan sheds light on his work with Free a Girl, an organization dedicated to rescuing children from sexual exploitation. We also dive into what businesses and individuals can learn from his experiences—resilience, adaptability, and the power of taking small steps in difficult situations.

Support Free a Girl!

The Free a Girl foundation, has already rescued over 8,000 children from sexual exploitation.

Join the mission by donating, spreading awareness, or supporting the Paperclip Challenge to raise $100K.

🌍 Learn more & donate: Free a Girl

💡 Support the Paperclip Challenge: Help us trade up from a guitar and amplifier to $100K to support this cause. You have something to trade? Reach out to us via paperclipchallenge@optilearn.co.uk!

Connect with Arjan

📖 Book: Held Hostage – [Available on Amazon]
🌐 Website: ArjanErkel.com

🌐 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arjanerkel/

Connect with Mastering Agility

📢 Follow the podcast for more inspiring stories
💬 Join the conversation on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/mastering-agility
📩 Contact us for trades or sponsorships

👉 If you enjoyed this episode, leave a review and share it with someone who needs to hear this inspiring story!

Check out our sponsor:
www.xebia.com

www.scrummatch.com

www.wiserbees.com

www.masteringagility.org

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.