Transformation

Articles

Thoughts and insights on transformation.

All Transformation

All Leadership development

All Team dynamics

All Product management

All Agility

AI Productivity: Hype vs Reality (6/6): Give people permission to play

April 10, 2026

Transformation

AI Productivity: Hype vs Reality (6/6): Give people permission to play

The fastest AI adopters didn't mandate anything - they removed friction. Give people access to tools without a procurement nightmare, create space for experimentation, and build channels to share what they discover.

AI Productivity: Hype vs Reality (5/6): Closed systems will fail

April 7, 2026

Transformation

AI Productivity: Hype vs Reality (5/6): Closed systems will fail

The organisations best positioned for AI built open, accessible codebases years ago - not for AI, but because it was the right way to build software. AI just made the payoff enormous.

AI Productivity: Hype vs Reality (4/6): Watch out for Mt. Stupid (Dunning-Kruger Effect)

April 2, 2026

Transformation

AI Productivity: Hype vs Reality (4/6): Watch out for Mt. Stupid (Dunning-Kruger Effect)

AI doesn't close the expertise gap - it widens it. Give the same tools to an expert and they catch the bad plans. Give them to someone earlier on that curve, and they churn out a lot of crap - just by not knowing better.

AI Productivity: Hype vs Reality (3/6): The burnout cliff is coming

March 31, 2026

April 1, 2026

Transformation

AI Productivity: Hype vs Reality (3/6): The burnout cliff is coming

People restructuring their sleep schedules to check on AI agents overnight. Teams doing 12-14 hour days during multi-week "lockdown" sprints. A pace he described as "truly not sustainable for the human brain."

AI Productivity: Hype vs Reality (2/6): Quality is the new bottleneck

March 27, 2026

April 1, 2026

Transformation

AI Productivity: Hype vs Reality (2/6): Quality is the new bottleneck

Work is shifting from producing work to evaluating it. Every organisation adopting AI needs to ask: what are our quality gates now? Who (and what) reviews AI-assisted output?

AI Productivity: Hype vs Reality (1/6): Temper your expectations

March 25, 2026

April 1, 2026

Transformation

AI Productivity: Hype vs Reality (1/6): Temper your expectations

AI capabilities have leaped forward in 2026. But how much of the productivity hype is actually true? Brendan shares what senior engineers and PMs at big tech companies are really seeing on the ground.