Field notes · Where the naming came fromAbout
Plate V · fig. 6
The line, running14
The line, running. Planning Poker was invented mid-session, a fix for one room, which turned out to generalize. This practice runs on the same belief: the catalog is harvested, not designed up front.

Lineage

Twenty-five years, one thread

“Individuals and interactions over processes and tools” didn’t expire when AI showed up. It became load-bearing. Every instrument in this catalog is the same lesson, restated for a new tool: the system is the process. Your judgment stays the product.

  1. 2001The Agile Manifesto. Individuals and interactions over processes and tools.
  2. 2001–2025Two decades delivering software the same way — rooms, retrospectives, judgment built one project at a time, one team at a time.
  3. 2026Ten instruments, out of real rooms, on the way to becoming a catalog — agiletoai.

The full essay — the four Manifesto values, examined one at a time against what AI actually changes — is at The Manifesto, Re-Examined.

The architecture · How the brand holds togetherUmbrella · methodology · lanes
fig. 10
A row of gauges, reading the same instrument panel
A row of gauges, one panel. Five different readouts, all wired to the same instrument — not five different instruments.

Three layers

One umbrella, one methodology, five lanes

Everything on this site ships under one name; underneath it sits one methodology; the methodology reaches people through a small, fixed set of surfaces. No lane invents its own doctrine.

  1. 01
    agiletoai

    The umbrella. The domain, the voice, the name every lane signs with.

  2. 02
    AI Mechanics

    The methodology — doctrine, discipline, concept — and the credential a practitioner works toward.

  3. 03
    The lanes

    Talks · workshops · the deck · The Shelf · this site. Same doctrine, five surfaces.

Practitioner · Derek Johnson · Ekow Solutions GroupAbout

The practitioner

Twenty-five years in delivery. The last one spent in the room where this got harvested.

Derek Johnson runs Ekow Solutions Group’s AI practice: workshops and advisory engagements where a real problem forces a real improvisation, and the improvisations that survive three rooms earn a place in this catalog. The most recent proving ground was a federal leadership session — thirty-some people, one afternoon, the room that produced more than one of the instruments now sitting in the drawer.

The posture
Instruments, not products
Every entry is a thing a leader can do, not a thing to agree with.
The harvest loop
Client work forces an improvisation; it gets noticed, captured the same day, and reused.
The three-room rule
Nothing enters the catalog on one success. An instrument that works in three different rooms is a tool.
Work with us →Read the methodThe method is free, in full — the instrument sheets ask for one email. The workshops are where it comes from.
The roles ahead · Vocabulary before the job postingsForward-looking
fig. 12
A ladder, rungs evenly spaced
A ladder, rungs evenly spaced. Agile named Scrum Master and Product Owner before most organizations had a box for them on the chart. The rungs came first; the chart caught up.

Naming what doesn’t exist yet

Eight roles, named before the org chart catches up

Agile didn’t just introduce practices — it created roles that didn’t exist before, then a generation of people to fill them. This is the same move, early: vocabulary we expect to see in job postings within two years. The cards will define them.

The roles
AI Steward
Owns accountability when AI-generated work ships.
Context Curator
Manages what the organization has told AI.
Verification Lead
Owns the org-wide discipline of checking AI output.
AI Adoption Coach
Helps teams change how they think about AI, not just which tools.
Workflow Architect
Designs the workflow first, chooses the agents second.
Cost Steward
Treats AI spend as infrastructure, not a hobby budget.
Human-in-the-Loop Designer
Decides where a human must touch, before anything is built.
AI Risk Officer
Owns governance, compliance, and safety as AI use scales.

None of these are certified yet. Naming them first is the whole bet.