In this inaugural episode, Pavel and I dig into the history and dysfunction of Agile, not to relitigate waterfall vs. Agile, but to examine why modern Agile practice has drifted so far from its original intent. We explore how the Agile manifesto was written entirely without designers in mind, how the "Scrum industrial complex" turned a flexible philosophy into a rigid checklist, and why two-week sprints often amount to waterfall in disguise. We cover the critical role of feedback loops, the danger of prioritizing outputs over outcomes, and why shared problem understanding is what teams actually need. We also make a case that good design principles are the closest thing we have to a genuine fix, because design is built around the kind of iterative, goal-questioning thinking that Agile always promised and rarely delivered.
Guest Bio
Pavel Samsonov (he/him) is a Principal Experience Designer at Justworks in New York. His approach to product & UX draws from his research at Nielsen Norman Group, experience building design practice at AWS, and managing product teams at Bloomberg.
Pavel often describes himself as a Problem Designer, because the biggest influence on the solution is always the framing of the problem.
Credits
Cover design by Kristine Planche (inspired by Raquel Breternitz).
