Agility over Agile (with Jag Johal)

In this episode, Ben Maynard is joined by Jag Johal, Director of Agile Transformation at Jaguar Land Rover, for a refreshingly candid conversation on what it really takes to move the needle in a complex, scaled business—and why it’s time to focus on agility, not just Agile.

With a background in HR and deep experience navigating change in global environments, Jag brings a grounded, human-centric view to transformation. Together, they explore how humility, curiosity, and systems thinking trump frameworks, certifications, and buzzwords.

If you’ve ever felt stuck in the noise of agile theatre or questioned whether the industry’s obsession with methods is missing the point, this episode is a powerful reminder that sustainable change comes from purposeful connection, not flashy labels.

Jag shares insights from the automotive frontline—where software and hardware must dance in sync—and how JLR is tackling the real-world challenges of integrating agility across disciplines, mindsets, and legacy systems. No smoke and mirrors, just honest lessons in leading with learning.

🧠 What You’ll Learn

• Why "agility" is proving more valuable than capital-A Agile in large enterprises
• How a humanistic, data-informed approach drives meaningful change
• The role of courageous conversations in surfacing what really matters
• Why learning from failure can be the most reliable transformation data point
• How quiet, steady cultural shifts often win over grand transformations

💥 Key Takeaways

“When agility is no longer a ‘thing’, that’s when you know it’s working.”

• Agility belongs to everyone, not just Agile roles
• Great transformation isn’t loud—it’s embedded, systemic, and human
• Connecting what works across an enterprise is more powerful than starting from scratch
• Passion, humility, and data make the best transformation toolkit

🎯 Who This Is For

• Change-makers looking beyond frameworks to real impact
• Agile practitioners craving a more authentic path forward
• Leaders of complex orgs seeking subtle but scalable transformation
• Anyone tired of the agile show and ready for meaningful progress

This isn’t Agile 2.0—it’s a call to come back to what matters. Tune in!

Host Bio

Ben is a seasoned expert in product agility coaching, unleashing the potential of people and products. With over a decade of experience, his focus now is product-led growth & agility in organisations of all sizes.

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Ben Maynard

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Product Agility Podcast

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Transcript

Ben Maynard (00:00)
Hello and welcome to the Product Agility Podcast. It's been a while since I've done an episode actually. I've had a few weeks off because life and work and stuff like that. And I was sitting down wondering, how do I restart the episodes? I need somebody really good to come on, to entice everyone back into listening. And that's exactly what we've been able to achieve. Cause we have a Jag Johal from ⁓ Jaguar Land Rover. He is the director.

of agile transformation. And somebody that I did get to meet in person when I did a little talk, Jag, you and I made a, I can't remember how long ago, it feels like a lifetime, but probably wasn't. And we're just super impressed about the people that got in the organization, the enthusiasm, the progress they're making. And so it's just so fantastic, Jag, to have you here. Someone that's got such an interesting background, but also really interesting insight into the current state of agility, particularly in your kind of

household name of an organization. So Jack, thank you so much for coming along and sparing your time for us and the listeners today.

Jag (01:05)
Thank you for inviting me, really appreciate it.

Ben Maynard (01:08)
So it would be brilliant if you could give everyone just a little bit of a background as to kind of, yeah, what brings you to the role that you find yourself in today and what it is that you're doing as director of Agile Transformation at Jaguar Land Rover.

Jag (01:21)
Sure, I'll do my best. So, potted history. I've been working at JLR since I was a grad, but actually my background is all in HR, predominantly. So that's where I spent a big chunk of my life. I first came into this agile world three, four years ago, and will quite openly share with people that coming into this clearly had not been part of a software team.

I'm

not a developer, haven't been a Scrum Master. I could spell the word Agile. I a rugby player in my youth, so knew what Scrum was in that context. And ⁓ was building my knowledge in this space. But that's where I sort came into it, in terms of the journey we started as a business.

Ben Maynard (01:55)
You

Jag (02:15)
They looking for someone to kind of get involved. There was a lot of this that just intuitively just felt right. There's lots of things about this space that I just loved. Won't profess to have anywhere close to the sort of extensive experience of someone like yourself Ben or other coaches, et cetera, that I've come to work with. I do have a passion for making this type of work right because I think it's... ⁓

It's so fundamental to helping businesses solve their problems and allow people to be their brilliant best at work. And if there's a mechanism that allows those two things to come together, I think that's something worth pursuing.

Ben Maynard (02:54)
Nicely, well put. And I think that there's a...

And it's an interesting situation, right? think when you haven't been kind of in and around the world for like that long in the grand scheme of things, I honestly think at times that's a bonus. I think it's a benefit to not be kind of, I don't know, what's the word I'm looking for? Tainted a little bit by some of the machinations and some of the growth and some of the toing and throwing. And I think there's a lot to be said for just kind of really understanding it and getting it and kind of maintaining that enthusiasm. And I think that for many people,

You know, it's that enthusiasm for agile, which perhaps is still there, but that is not matched in the market. You know, there is not an anywhere niche, any way, or form, the level of ⁓ market interest for agile coaches or scrum masters or for spending money on agile training anymore. And I think this is what if people are ⁓ maybe ⁓ over egging a little bit and saying agile is dead.

And what I'm talking about here is that the demand for Anshan is dead from a commercial perspective. But I do wonder, is Anshan actually dead? Because no one's really leaning into saying like, what next? Apart from a few, and I must say, a few people, if you go on LinkedIn, there'd always be people talking about what next. I saw that there's been an expansion to the Scrum Guide, which was released last week. Yet more money's making schemes.

to make money from our child. But no one's generally saying here is something which is a free or whatever it is. But here is the serious thing about what next. So I'm wondering, Chuck, given your really interesting kind of position in JLR, with Jackie with a Land Rover for the people who are not familiar with that acronym, but what do you think is next?

Jag (04:38)
I think it's taken it back down to some of its basics. At its core, how do you get people working together, bringing people from different skills and expertise to come and solve a problem? And the reason I believe that, I guess, agility more than agile is arguably as as live as ever.

is that most businesses have got problems coming out of their ears. The world is just chucking more and more at them. Events of the weekend have added further turmoil to the environment that we're all in. And people are constantly trying to make sense of it. So I actually believe that...

agility is needed more than ever now and I think will be need to continue to be needed more. It's about people who can lean into that space and I think be able to spend time looking at problems, identify what the actual issue is and then help come up with solutions. think you you said in your last podcast Ben you know it's looking for insights that others don't find easily.

That I think is a real clue here in terms of what I think people can really offer in this space. Lots of business leaders are very busy trying to solve their particular issues.

They don't necessarily have all of the time to take that step back and really look at what is happening across the landscape, the enterprise inside and outside of the business. That's where I think people in this space can really offer some value and use insights, use data in its many forms, numerical and non-numerical, to help shape how a business could improve. It's not for you to say that every single idea you will be positioning gets listened to.

But help inform a conversation, be part of that dialogue, encourage some feedback back. Yes, that's an insight, Jack, but what I see is this. And not think it's ever a one way kind of conversation. the more I look at this space, the more I just think the demand for that kind of conversation is actually just growing and will continue to grow. Just looking at the world around us.

Ben Maynard (07:09)
And I think that is like very, true. And a lot of this, you if you go back to, ⁓ Christ, I'm trying to think what year it was published. I remember the nineties, there's something called the fifth discipline around systems thinking. And it talks about balancing advocacy with inquiry. You know, and I think it's really, really important. And this is what I find really sad is that, do know what? And all the money that people made from Agile, I don't think anybody really ever pushed.

Jag (07:25)
Yep.

Ben Maynard (07:35)
those particular types of skill sets, you know, it was always the frameworks and everything else. And so when you say like, people in this space, I mean, you think about kind of the state of Agile, like, what kind of people are you talking about here? you talking about anybody, regardless of their role? Or are you thinking specific, like, scrum master Agile coaches? Like, what is in your head when you think of like, these people that can do this type of thing?

Jag (07:59)
I suppose you naturally would go to in the first instance, coaches, scrum masters, guess, quote unquote, people who are holding agile roles. But for me, think this is actually how do you broaden those types of people enabling that conversation. I think one of the things that I've observed rightly or wrongly and

Ben Maynard (08:09)
Hmm.

Jag (08:26)
is that to solve complex problems, requires a range of skills and capabilities to do so. So asking an agile coach just to do that by themselves is a really difficult ask. If you are leaning into sort of, you know, big deep rooted challenges in any business,

You need people from different disciplines. So having people with a knowledge and understanding of agility, know, absolutely. But complementing that with people who understand lean and other delivery mechanisms, I think is really important. Having people who understand process mapping and process excellence. a really big part of this for me, so I bring this all back down to people and maybe my background leads me towards that direction.

having a really strong humanistic lens to this. How are people interacting together? How are you building the right culture that would allow all of this conversation to happen in the first place? I still think many organizations haven't yet tapped into the brilliance that sits within them and that many people are constrained by the systems they work in. Those systems were never going to be remedied just by applying

Ben Maynard (09:35)
Hmm.

Jag (09:44)
an agile methodology of any description. It's more complicated and multifaceted than that. And therefore, think lots of people have a contribution to enable agility, irrespective of whether you have held a full, agile position, as it were.

Ben Maynard (09:46)
Hmm.

So how do you in your role help make those kind of systemic changes happen?

Jag (10:11)
That's a very good question and you could argue how far we've been able to do that. But I think a big part for me is actually trying to connect various parts of various conversations together. So I think we see lots of people trying to attack the challenges that we have. Again, no necessarily different to lots of other businesses. But it is about drawing on some of the insight.

So what have I seen in my time in this business? I've been lucky enough to kind of work across pretty much every single function and discipline. So that's allowed me to have an insight into kind of what are our challenges, what works, and there's lots that does work. And that's the other thing I think sometimes we over index on. We forget actually from an appreciative inquiry perspective, how do you multiply all the stuff that does work, not just look at the problem statements.

But being able to kind of draw those capabilities together and then engage with the business on, so where would we focus best on? ⁓ We've learned a hell of a lot over the last few years and I think we are still very much on the journey. And if there's one thing I would say, since I started this, it's been the steepest learning curve of my career to date, which has been brilliant in many respects in terms of.

just absorbing everything I possibly can around us. And that in itself, I think is part of it, is just that learning. Where are you constantly learning and engaging the leaders in the conversations that would help us drive to better solutions? What is going to matter most to them? We haven't got that right in some instances, and we've been a bit off-piece. But I think that for me is the critical question that I keep coming back to and keep asking myself.

Are we focused on the things that matter most to the leaders?

Ben Maynard (12:03)
Hmm. But that's, that's a really great thing to say. I was writing down here, you know, what gets in the, in the way of getting it right. And there were last statement there about they really understand giving your leaders what they, what they need or want, but is that then

difficult problem is when what the leaders are after doesn't align with what you're trying to achieve.

Jag (12:26)
Yeah, and I think some of that comes back to the insight piece. I think there's a difference between what a business wants and what a business needs. And in stating that need, it is having a degree of bravery and courage ⁓ to put that out there. But that will come only from a place of

Ben Maynard (12:37)
Mm-hmm.

Jag (12:53)
a genuine insight. Otherwise, it's just another opinion in a potential sea of opinions. And I come back to my point on data in terms of what are the data points you're using that has given you that insight. And again, you know, be very open in terms of my background in this space, but one area I've lent on heavily is

Ben Maynard (12:57)
Hmm.

Jag (13:19)
from kind of a more organisation development lens, and particularly a dialogic OD lens, which speaks about understanding the system you're in. Not looking from the outside, but being inside it and working collaboratively, but with a very strong democratic, humanistic lens to it. That keeps you focused on people. And I think that's an anchor that is definitely worth holding onto.

Ben Maynard (13:40)
Hmm.

So what data points have you found particularly useful in your journey at JLR?

Jag (13:51)
The most useful are the points of where things don't work. So where have we just seen an absence of data in some instances? There is nothing actually that is really meaningful to say something has shifted from A to B. That has been challenging because then you have leaders who do ask you, well, what was the value of what we have just done?

Ben Maynard (13:57)
Mm-hmm.

Jag (14:21)
The biggest thing I've taken from that is, okay, now what have we learned as a consequence of that? Probably part A, learnt not to do that particular thing again. Good. But actually, what would allow us to go forward? And where have we seen the greatest interaction? I think more than anything,

Having the humility to go, something hasn't worked, is probably one of the biggest data points you can get. Because it does engage people in a conversation rather than continuing to push a framework, a methodology. It opens a door to a conversation, I think, in terms of, OK, so what would you do next? Where would you pivot towards? Still, ⁓ a...

Ben Maynard (14:48)
Hmm.

Jag (15:07)
a very long way we've got to go in terms of really embedding the concepts of agility, I would say. We have made some huge strides and I see lots of great conversations happening in this place that maybe we didn't want to pull a time. Or certainly not to the extent that I think we are able to now. But it's probably in the areas that we actually haven't done as well in that we thought we might have done better in that the

Ben Maynard (15:34)
Hmm.

Jag (15:36)
the best data point learning I think has actually evidenced itself.

Ben Maynard (15:40)
So you mentioned earlier, I so you were talking about the absence of data and kind of looking at where things didn't quite work out. But then you did say something earlier, which I thought was great. And something that I've always tried to do, but haven't always succeeded, which is like multiplying what does work.

You know, so is that a balance that you've been able to strike in there, not just kind of always finding the problems to solve, but also being able to find good examples of stuff that is working well and have you been able to successfully kind of scale or multiply the effect of those things?

Jag (16:10)
Yeah, because I think I always come back to, we've got some of the most amazing people in this business and connecting people and getting them to share where they've had successes with others. So not through me or the team per se, but actually enabling and connecting those people in the business to go talk for themselves and then take those lessons on. Not always intuitive to people because I think

there is this sense of wanting to achieve and wanting to learn something for yourself. But one of the things I think I've seen, not just in the agility space, think I've seen it, you know, we've been on a big cultural journey as a business, massive technical advances that we're making, seeing people

lean into spaces where things work and taking those lessons and going now how do I not necessarily copy and paste but there are some certain things in there that means I don't have to start at zero I can start at four out of ten. I've moved a lot quicker already so I think we're seeing those conversations happen more and more it's how do we encourage them I think.

Particularly when there's pressure on leaders to deliver results quickly. That isn't necessarily the first place you go to. Your first place you go to is let's get going, let's get moving. Not necessarily to pause and reflect and look at what else there is around us.

Ben Maynard (17:37)
I don't know. Some of the stuff you said then just gave me like 100 different questions to ask and so I'm going to like try and weave through. There were two of my favorite ones here. I'm really interested to know with, you know, whole agile is dead, long live agility, whatever we kind of phrase it, happening in the market and you being on your agile journey internally and yeah, and

if finding ways to kind of get the get benefit from agility. And I guess for you, the whole kind of Agile is Dead thing internally isn't like there's not a it's not getting in the way of anything, but I'm just wondering, like how has the narrative and what's been happening in the market affected your ability to kind of embrace your journey? Have you had to pivot? Have you stuck with it? Have you had to stop using language and just talk about the what next? Like has it?

affected you internally at all.

Jag (18:35)
I wouldn't say that conversation has necessarily affected us. ⁓ I think certainly those in quote unquote the agile community are aware of it and talk about it. But in terms of general conversations I hear in the business, not really part of the vernacular. ⁓ I think, however, ⁓ parallel to that,

Ben Maynard (18:41)
Hmm.

Mm.

Jag (19:03)
internally those types of similar questions are being posed in various places. So almost without the influence of the external conversation it is a mirror of what I'm hearing and picking up which is are we really gaining traction, are we getting the value that we wanted from this. So the parallels are actually quite stark. Where I think at a point of

pivoting. Increasingly you hear lots of people talk as you know we are talking about agility rather than agile. We're talking about how do we plan better, how do we prioritise better, how do we work better together. Trying to drop some of the more formal aspects of it.

At the same time, how are we trying to enable a level of consistency? Because one of our challenges is working across a system in what is a complex business that has both hardware and software as intrinsic parts of it that allow lots of people to integrate together to create a product on time, to cost, quality. That is a set of complexities that is still

Ben Maynard (20:11)
Mmm.

Jag (20:25)
very much at work in progress. But some of it comes down to working to the principles rather than ⁓ pushing formal agile concepts or methodologies, I think. And as ever, there's a balance. And that's what I'd also strive to say. There is a place for consistency and alignment because it does help bigger organizations. So.

While I think to some degree frameworks can be maligned, much of it is about the application of them and ⁓ also making it relevant to the context in which you're in. Just generically applying it is likely to not be successful. If you can tune it to something that works for you, then you're in a different ballpark.

Ben Maynard (21:02)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, but it's that tuning it with purpose, isn't it? It's really understanding like where you're trying to go and how you want to get there and being able to tune it, you know, intelligently with purpose rather than just, ⁓

using the framework, but you're just basically doing what you're doing before, but with some new labels.

Jag (21:34)
Yes, yeah, yeah. And I think that that's the key to success for me. Labelling things and calling things differently, just all putting the word Agile in front of it. Generally not had too much success with it. And people see through it. They're too intelligent to cover not to.

Ben Maynard (21:37)
Mmm.

Yeah.

Yeah. And this is the other part of the, that was in my head around this. you think about that, what next? With Agile, the commercial industrial complex is Agile kind of being on its, being on the ropes, which I don't think is a bad thing. I think people made enough money. Um, and if, you know, if he didn't save it, then, you know, it reminds me of, there's that documentary on Netflix about a Premiership football player who basically was a decent Premiership football player.

And just always thought he was going have loads of money. And then turns out he wasn't very good at football anymore, relatively speaking, and didn't have any money. Yeah. So he didn't do that planning, you know? And so, yeah, think of you, I'm in a fortunate position where my business didn't really depend upon, actually overly. So I've done okay. But when we think about what next, you know, it isn't going to be more frameworks and it isn't going to be more certificates, but...

Jag (22:28)
right now.

Ben Maynard (22:50)
What I wonder is, think there's two things I'm interested in. One I think will be interesting listeners more than the other. One is I'd be really fascinated if you can share anything about what it's like working at JLR, know, with the rise of EV cars and then the shift that means from the software and hardware, that integration perspective, because I guess, know, historically, the software was a critical part of a car. And now it's kind of like...

Yeah, it's the brain of the bigger brain of the car. So I find that really interesting. But then the flip side, and still relevant and what next? AI. How is AI going to affect what happens next? And can there be benefits of people instead of spending their time attending training courses, actually finding new ways to work with various different forms of AI models. So you can pick and choose how you want to answer that or not answer any of those questions, Jag. But those are the two things that are really kind of bubbling away in my head.

Jag (23:47)
Yeah, they're both great questions. I suppose in some respects we're no different to lots of the automotive industry in terms of the rate of change unprecedented. So even from my time and again I'm not an engineer or work in the technical space per se but the things that car companies are doing now are just different from

10 years ago, challenges around ⁓ EV, what the world of autonomous driving might look like, just the sheer quantity of code that now sits on the car compared to what used to be there. It is mind boggling in terms of the complexity that these vehicles now have and

Ben Maynard (24:21)
Mmm.

Jag (24:36)
the demands upon them by the customer have also grown. The expectations of what people want to do with cars, again, is just changing before our eyes. So keeping up with that is actually just really hard in the first place. And how we then use that as an opportunity, I think, is kind of the critical bit. So...

Ben Maynard (24:39)
Hmm.

Jag (24:58)
enabling us to find a place in the market that makes us attractive. People want to come back to us. People want to be part of something that's maybe beyond just the vehicles. And then again, I come back to how we're enabling our people and creating a system that is really going to drive that.

recognizing that literally every day is a learning day. And somewhere in that journey, AI does sit apart. For me, it just feels like that space is accelerated in just the last six to nine months, I think, in terms of new tools that are coming out. We obviously saw the SeaCrap come out, et cetera, challenging some of the status quo that we know. And how, again, are we using that?

but in the right way. I don't profess to be an AI expert at all either actually. ⁓ And it's still something I'm learning lots about like others. There is definitely something in that space about how we're enabling work to be done, decisions to be made quicker, information to be processed quicker. But at the heart of it,

Ben Maynard (25:49)
Hmm.

Jag (26:10)
how are we retaining an authenticity about who we are as a business? What do we stand for? That comes from people in my point of view, or always will. Maybe I'm a Luddite and haven't quite caught on to this just yet. But that passion, that desire, the thing about our place is it doesn't matter whether you're a, you don't just have to be an engineer. The passion for our vehicles runs throughout the whole place. It's always been one of the things that struck me.

and we see that translate itself into the customer base. There is a connection we form with our customers through our vehicles, which is unique.

Ben Maynard (26:51)
Hmm. And have you ever found that to be anything but a positive when you're working with teams and you're kind of explaining about agility and that about the proximity to the customers and the users. I said, have you found that an easier one to square off, given that that says maybe lot of people that work in your organization are also customers or at least kind of appreciate the brand.

Jag (27:14)
Generally, yes, I think ⁓ there's an ongoing desire to, know, to how do you make these products the best they possibly can be? The challenge often will be how you integrate it all together and create a package that really does make sense for the customer. And again, those are tradeoffs. ⁓ Those are...

decisions on what particular customers want, could be cost, et cetera. And that's where I keep coming back to the fact that that's where agility lives. You've got to make those, you've got to have those conversations real and be able to be nimble enough to be able to make those types of moves and respond to kind of what's happening in the market rather than just react to what's happening out there. How do you give yourself permission to play and keep yourself?

in a place where you can continue to be innovative but you're coming from a point of view of strength rather than reacting to what you're seeing elsewhere in the marketplace. And it goes back to the question you asked earlier Ben about what does you know who are these people.

Well, that's why I keep coming back to the fact that this is everybody. Agility is not just for a chosen few. I think agility is something that everyone in a business needs to encapsulate in some way, shape or form and be able to have the mindset, the dexterity of thinking to enable that to live in whatever product or service they're producing.

Ben Maynard (28:47)
Hmm.

Yeah, fascinating. think it's such an interesting environment in which you work. I don't think that, I think for many listeners that you can really comprehend just the scale of all the different people that are involved. You know, in what it takes to kind of get your products, which are many, you know, into people's, say hands, but get it physically with the customer is a colossal amount of energy and time and thought and conversation that needs to happen.

I think if you say yes, I wonder how much the listeners are kind of listening to this and just not getting this way with the serious scale of what it is that you're having to do here on a daily basis. And so I'm wondering if you think to the future Jack, and you think of a challenges on the horizon, what's your what next when it comes to the transformation at JLR?

Jag (29:38)
I think it is about really trying to focus on the concepts of agility over agile, as it were. Go back to, we generally working well together and collaborating and have the right behaviours and environment? Do we know what the really important things are that we're going for and how do we plan accordingly?

learn from what we've done and use data to kind of have those measurement points. I think if we continue on that cycle we won't go too far wrong and I think again that is incumbent on all of us in this place to try and bring a part of and lots of people already do that's the thing.

it's about how do we now try to bring this together in a bit more of a systemic manner, I suppose. Really try and bed some of the skills that we've started to talk about, make it part of everyday life, not something different, not something to be added on to, to be over and above what people's working lives are. We've got to make people's working lives as easy as possible. That hasn't always been the case.

and allow the brilliant engineers to engineer, to allow the brilliant procurement people to buy all of the required parts, the commercial people to showcase what they can do in terms of attracting and retaining people. ⁓

And think it's something that's a lot quieter. It's a lot more subtle. It's in the background. It's not bells and whistles. It's not shouting from the rooftops. But just over time, it becomes part of everyday life. And when it's not a thing anymore, that's when I think we've hit a success point.

Ben Maynard (31:33)
Hmm.

That's a beautiful insight, I think, you know, was really loving what you're saying there about, know, about not being this big show of agile, or agility or transformation, but when people just have doing it in the background, and when people when it's happening, and no one's talking about it, then maybe that's the ultimate marker of success of all of this. I mean, have you found that there's a particular

Jag (32:02)
Yeah.

Ben Maynard (32:06)
area where you were surprised at the level of traction that you got in people going to change in the conversations that they had.

Jag (32:12)
I wouldn't say there's a particular area. I think we definitely saw lots of people up for this conversation across different parts of the business actually and that the pull almost was really hard to manage just because again you you referenced scale earlier and that's probably one of our biggest challenges. Inevitably what you get, you get good challenge from people in terms of yeah but

What about? I've always worked this way and I haven't really sold why it's going to be any better, Jack. Or really valid, actually, and I think they help the conversation. But I think I was always quite positively encouraged and remain encouraged about people want to challenge the status quo. People want to make things better. And from my perspective, again, I go back to the sort of previous point.

In making things better, it has absolutely nothing to do with Agile. I'm all good for that. If the thing that you're trying to get better in the problem you're trying to solve can be solved. If in some small way what we've done is we've enabled a conversation to highlight that and then the path has been chosen to make something better that is a different path, then that's our job done in this particular instance.

Ben Maynard (33:34)
Hmm.

Jag (33:38)
Yeah, lots of brilliant conversations we have and as many of the conversations I have that I would deem as brilliant are the ones I are hugely challenging. It's the, show me, Cenk, where this really has made the impact because that, you've got people really applying a critical lens and I don't mean that in the term critically, they are...

they are offering some level of critical analysis of which you've got to lean back into. That test your resolve, you know, well, OK, you've got a point. We're not good enough at that. How do we go further? So I think it's the last few years, I've lost count of the number of great conversations I've had, many to the extent that I'll finish the week and my head will hurt, not quite know what to do with some of them.

and there's probably a list that's at my desk at the moment of things to pick back up, but I'm constantly amazed about the genuine intent we have in people who do want to make this system better and better, agnostic of whichever particular methodology you go after.

Ben Maynard (34:50)
As for Jack, I always like to end the episode on a high, on a positive note. And I feel that maybe, maybe that was it. I really, I really like your approach to all of it. You know, I think so many transformations just never delivered anything. And it was about this, song and the dance of it all. And it was the bells and whistles and was the frameworks, but it sounds like what you've got is a really sustainable and pragmatic approach.

You know, I think that's a, it's really nice to hear, really nice to hear. Is there anything that you wanted to share, but maybe I haven't given you opportunity to during our conversation that you want to kind of ⁓ just as the icing on the cake.

Jag (35:34)
Probably just there's a massive thank you I think in there to all of the people I've had the privilege of meeting over the last few years in this space that had I not taken on this particular challenge I probably wouldn't have met and in some way shape or form they've all helped my learning. I've taken things from pretty much most people I speak to

It does always help because sometimes my ideas kind of over explode and I'm not quite sure what to do with them and they sort of fall under their own magnificence. But I think that everyone I've come in contact with in this space, be it the coaches, the scrum masters, the product owners, people outside of this business, I've also been leaning into to listen and learn from.

Ben Maynard (36:09)
haha

Jag (36:34)
have all in some way, shape or form helped. And I think it again, just reiterates what sits at the heart of all of this, great conversations. If you have great conversations, you'll stitch something together. So I'm hugely appreciative of the time that people have given me. And like I said, at the very start, I go back to the fact that I'm leaning into a space that I don't have 15, 20 years experience of, others do.

Ben Maynard (36:47)
Mm.

Jag (37:04)
have been hugely invaluable to help me develop my thinking and our collective approach, this isn't about me or I, if the moment I start speaking about that then we've lost. This is very much an hour game.

Ben Maynard (37:16)
Hmm.

Ah, awesome. Yeah, get, let me end it on a high. Thank you very much, Jag. And it's nice, I love the fact you took the opportunity to kind of thank all those people, because that is a wonderful thing to do. And I think you're a nice human. It's been a pleasure to have you on for this first episode in a while. And I'm hoping that we can only continue to keep the bar this high over the coming weeks. So Jag, you've set a very hard bar for me to kind of...

reach. So thank you very much for coming on and sharing your insights and being so open and humble. It's been a joy to have you on.

Jag (37:53)
No problem, really appreciate the time. Great conversation, thank you.

Ben Maynard (37:57)
And everyone, thank you very much for hanging around and listening to us. Hopefully we'll be back again in the very foreseeable future with another excellent guest or maybe just me trying to be as excellent but on my own. We shall wait and see. So thank you all for listening. This has been the Product Agility Podcast.