AI at work Archives - Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast

BONUS: The Real-Time Research Superpower, and Other Lessons for Change Leaders Using AI – With Ari-Pekka Skarp

AI is changing how Scrum Masters, Agile coaches, and change leaders make sense of organizations. In this BONUS episode, Ari-Pekka Skarp shares how he uses AI as a research assistant, a workspace partner, and a way to bring qualitative research into day-to-day change leadership.

From Curiosity to Research Assistant

“It felt like having a research assistant.”

Ari-Pekka’s first serious AI use did not start in his full-time change leadership role. It started with side projects, research, psychotherapy-related work, and watching his son build websites with Lovable. That curiosity became practical when Ari-Pekka began using AI to support his PhD research.

Instead of spending a full day scanning articles, he could find relevant sources, generate useful summaries, and decide where to go deeper in about half an hour. The key was not that AI replaced his judgment. Because he already knew the research area, he could evaluate the quality of what the AI returned and use it as a complement to his own expertise.

AI Expands the Research Surface

“With the help of AI, I could actually make a little more of these sidetracks.” Continue reading BONUS: The Real-Time Research Superpower, and Other Lessons for Change Leaders Using AI – With Ari-Pekka Skarp

BONUS: The Hidden Dangers of AI at Work With Ari-Pekka Skarp

AI is usually sold as a productivity tool, but Ari-Pekka Skarp argues that the real story is what it does to the conversations, skills, and purpose that hold teams together. In this BONUS episode, Ari-Pekka explores why organizations are rushing to use AI “as efficiently as possible” without defining what efficiency means, and what that rush is REALLY costing us.

Organizations Are Conversations

“Organizations are actually conversations, conversational patterns between people.”

Ari-Pekka’s path from software engineering in 1999 to psychology, psychotherapy, and change leadership was driven by one thread: how the mind works, both individually and socially. Meeting Ralph Stacey, Esko Kilpi, and Douglas Griffin at Nokia changed how he saw organizations. Instead of a machine made of parts, an organization is a living pattern of conversations — people responding to each other’s gestures, again and again. George Mead added the idea that the human mind itself is not individual but relational. This matters for AI because a large language model is a new kind of player in those conversations, not just a tool that moves data between them.

The Efficiency Fetish

“It’s like how much people are pressing the acceleration pedal in the car. It doesn’t tell anything where the car is going.” Continue reading BONUS: The Hidden Dangers of AI at Work With Ari-Pekka Skarp

BONUS: The AI Paradigm Shift, Interview With João Moura, creator of CrewAI

In this episode, we explore the impact that AI may have in our work, and discuss with João Moura, a key actor in the AI space about the future trends and what they mean for product development.

The Journey into AI and the Genesis of CrewAI

João Moura’s interest in AI began during his childhood coding endeavors, a journey marked by curiosity and challenge. Despite finding AI more complex than traditional programming, his persistent engagement led to the creation of CrewAI.

CrewAI, João’s library to take advantage of the multi-agent paradigm, is an example of what can happen when we bring different disciplines together in the form of a software development team. João refers to the transformation that happened in the field of AI when finally the software developers were working together with the AI researchers.

Transformative Changes in Technology through AI Integration

Continue reading BONUS: The AI Paradigm Shift, Interview With João Moura, creator of CrewAI