Rethinking How Organizations Scale with AI

What happens to organizations when the cost of outputs drops to nearly zero? That is the central question Dave West and Dr. Mik Kersten are back to explore in this episode of the Scrum.org Community Podcast. Mik, the author of the upcoming book Output to Outcome, joins Dave to dig into why so many companies are failing to see meaningful value from their AI investments and why the organization itself has become the bottleneck.

They cover the AI productivity paradox, why complexity is growing faster than outcomes in most large organizations, and what leaders need to do differently. Mik introduces the "outcome loop" as a mental model for leadership, explains why modularity and decentralization are the only structures that scale (in nature or in business), and shares why many organizations are quietly reverting to command-and-control patterns at exactly the wrong moment.

If you work in or lead a Scrum Team, manage a product organization, or are thinking about how AI is reshaping the way we structure and run teams, this conversation will give you a lot to chew on.

Output to Outcome by Dr. Mik Kersten is available for pre-order now, with release on July 14.