Why "Rules Written in Blood" Kill Agency—and How Stewardship Restores FlowWhen companies scale, the default move is to add "boxes and rules" to maintain control. But this functional isolation often creates massive friction, turning G&A into a bottleneck instead of an accelerator. In this episode, Tyson Bertmaring and Michelle Holliday join Yuval to explore how shifting from rigid management to "Stewardship" allows your organization to evolve as a high-capacity living ecosystem rather than a bureaucratic machine.

Inside this Episode

• (00:00) The G&A Specialization Trap — Why splitting into silos for efficiency actually slows you down.

• (04:44) Rules vs. Trust — How to stop punishing the many for the past mistakes of the few.

• (10:18) Goals, Principles, and Rules — Building a framework that gives employees context instead of just a checklist.

• (15:05) Stewardship as Organizational Gardening — Why you must tend the "relational soil" where growth happens.

• (24:06) Blurring the Org Chart — Leveraging overlapping responsibilities to catch value that typically slips through the cracks.

• (39:49) Identifying "Zombie" Policies — How to audit the relics of past bureaucracy currently draining your team.

• (52:32) The Bird’s-Eye View of G&A — Transitioning to agile, interdependent service teams that scale with the business.

Notable Quotes & Aha Moments

• "If we trust people to work on million-dollar experiments, we should probably trust them to make $10,000 decisions."

• "Stewardship is recognizing the complexity of an organization and knowing what should be controlled versus what should be tended."

• "We accept silos as 'just how work is,' but those boxes are exactly what prevents flow."

• "The only way out of the 'rat race' is to collaborate—it leads to belonging rather than isolation."

Deepen the Relationship

Connect with Tyson, who’s working on evolving partnership ecosystems in Biotech

Dive deeper into the world of Stewardship in Michelle’s book The Age of Thrivability

Your Next Step: Take the bird’s eye view

Invite a few people from around your G&A organization to take the bird’s eye view with you. What do you see? What’s flowing? What’s clogged? What could be the benefit of taking the bird’s eye view more often? 

Scaling w/ Agility with Yuval Yeret

Yuval Yeret helps scale-up leaders build resilient, high-capacity, thriving ecosystems that drive real business results. Get more of Yuval’s insights on scaling organizations with agility.

In this conversation, Yuval and Andrey Knourenko discuss Aras Software's scaling journey. They reflect on the challenges faced during the transition, the impact of COVID-19, and the evolution of planning approaches and team structures. The discussion also touches on the influence of private equity on agile practices and the need for continuous improvement in agile methodologies, particularly in the context of emerging technologies such as AI.

"You have to be agile about agile."

"It's about the speed of the whole system."

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Scaling with Agility

00:57 Understanding Ares Software and Its Journey

03:38 Challenges in Scaling and the Need for Methodology

05:31 Implementing SAFe: Initial Steps and Training

06:46 Outcomes of SAFe Implementation

08:28 Impact of COVID-19 on Agile Practices

11:14 Improvements and Trade-offs with SAFe

14:21 Team Structure and Mentorship in Agile

17:28 Evolving Beyond SAFe: Exploring New Methodologies

19:58 Tweaks and Innovations in Agile Practices

22:46 Analyzing Development Processes

24:12 Managing Iterations and Team Dependencies

26:53 Empowered Teams and Agile Structures

29:31 Adapting Agile Practices

32:59 Impact of Private Equity on Agile Practices

37:58 Navigating AI's Influence on Development

40:57 Key Takeaways from the Agile Journey

Follow Andrey on Linkedin

Learn more about Aras Software and its journey towards agility

Yuval Yeret is a business flow coach for the age of AI. Yuval is focused on helping mid-market and scale-up companies such as ARAS Software tackle hard shifts/inflection points and regain traction, speed, and impact through nuanced agility interventions.

https://yuvalyeret.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/yuvalyeret/

In this conversation, Yuval explores the intricate relationship between risk and value. He emphasizes the importance of understanding and managing risk to unlock potential value, particularly through de-risking strategies such as agile/iterative discovery-based execution.

"Agile is risk-driven development - You're surfing that risk."

00:00 The Correlation Between Value and Risk

04:12 De-risking Strategies in Product Development

10:46 Agile as a Risk-Driven Approach

At some point on the growth journey, most leaders reach a point at which they upgrade their organization’s operating system. (even if they don’t explicitly call it that)

Way too often, this upgrade doesn’t result in immediate acceleration and traction. In many cases, it feels like the organization is working FOR the new structures and ways of working, rather than the other way around.

The processes often seem too rigid and theatrical, rather than outcome-oriented.

In this crossover episode with the Scrum.org Community Podcast, Yuval Yeret joins Scrum.org CEO Dave West to unpack why adding these operating systems often slows down most companies instead of making them faster:

* The Founder’s Trap: Why the skills that get you to 30 people (and product-market fit) are the wrong skills to get you to 100.

* Functional Fiefdoms: How organizing by “departments” (Sales, Marketing, Product) optimizes for silos and guarantees systemic slowdowns.

* The “Responsible Adult” Problem: When new leaders, hired to bring order, inadvertently introduce bureaucracy that stifles the system.

* Scaling Framework “Theater”: Why so many implementations of EOS, Scaling Up, and OKRs become activity checklists—and how you’re likely serving the framework instead of it serving you.

* The Pragmatic Fix: How to break the bottleneck by organizing cross-functional teams around outcomes (like “pipeline health”) instead of org charts.

00:00 Introduction: The Paradox of Growth00:37 Scaling Challenges in Startups02:44 The Role of Responsible Adults in Scaling03:21 Why Scaling Slows Down Organizations12:18 Cross-Functional Teams and Market Segments20:29 Operating Systems for Scaling36:19 Final Thoughts and Reflections

Interested in a deeper dive?

Explore the role of operating systems and frameworks in regaining organizational traction - https://yuvalyeret.com/resources/mastering-organizational-traction-trail-map/

This podcast episode was recorded and published originally on the Scrum.org Community podcast: https://www.scrum.org/resources/scaling-smbs-without-losing-agility

Episode Overview

In this crossover episode with the Scrum.org Community Podcast, Yuval Yeret joins Scrum.org CEO Dave West to unpack why 95% of AI initiatives fail—not because of the tech, but because of outdated organizational operating systems. Together they explore how they’ve seen product thinking and empirical agility help leaders align strategy, product, and delivery to make AI deliver business impact. Together, they explore how mid-market and scale-up leaders can evolve their “Company Operating System” to become truly AI-ready: adaptive, outcome-driven, and designed for learning.

Highlight Quotes / Concepts

* “AI isn’t failing—our operating systems are.”

* “Treat your company like a product—develop it with evidence, feedback, and intent.”

* “Empiricism isn’t just for software teams. It’s how organizations survive uncertainty.”

* “The best results come when leaders focus AI on their biggest business constraints, not shiny experiments.”

Chapters

* 00:00 Welcome

* 02:35 Challenges in AI Adoption

* 03:51 Transforming Organizational Operating Systems

* 07:28 Product Thinking in AI

* 19:06 Context Development for AI

* 45:46 Final Thoughts and Takeaways

Notable Quotes

“Where people find gold with AI is when they use product techniques to think through strategy and execution—not when they chase shiny tools.” — Yuval Yeret

“AI exposes every weakness in how your business learns.” — Dave West

“Your operating system determines whether AI is a toy or a transformation.” — Yuval Yeret

“Don’t replace humans with AI—replace bureaucracy with learning.” — Yuval Yeret

Learn More:

* Improving AI Impact using Agility-based Operating Systems

* EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System)

* OKRs (Objectives and Key Results)

* Leveraging Evidence-Based Management to develop your company

* Improvement Kata / Toyota Design System

Is your organization’s operating system ready for AI?

Take Yuval’s free AI-Ready Operating System Scorecard and find out where your business is leaking traction—and how to fix it before your next AI initiative stalls.

👉 https://scorecard.yeretagility.com/quiz/ai-traction-scorecard

This podcast episode was recorded and published originally on the Scrum.org Community podcast: https://www.scrum.org/resources/ai-and-implications-your-organizations-operating-system.

In this last episode of the initial series, I share where we might go next in future episodes, exploring the product journey on the Scaling w/ Agility podcast.

If you have any questions, ideas, or would like to come on the podcast to share your product transformation journey, let me know!

Subscribe to the free audio mini course here: https://yuvalyeret.com/from-buzzwords-to-clarity-product-operating-model-audio-mini-course/

I’d love to get your feedback and help you navigate this landscape - https://yuvalyeret.com/work-with-me/figure-out-your-product-operating-model-strategy/

Interested in more of my insights on the Product world? https://yuvalyeret.com/category/blog/product/

Let’s talk about how to integrate the Product Operating Model elements we discussed in previous episodes:

* Recap of the “flipped pyramid” concept and its importance in POM

* Key aspects of a true product-oriented, agile organization

* The importance of treating the organizational setup itself as a product

* Preview of future episodes

I hope you’re finding this audio series useful. (If you landed here through the podcast you can subscribe to the free audio mini course here: https://yuvalyeret.com/from-buzzwords-to-clarity-product-operating-model-audio-mini-course/)

I’d love to get your feedback and help you navigate this landscape - https://yuvalyeret.com/work-with-me/figure-out-your-product-operating-model-strategy/

Interested in more of my insights on the Product world? https://yuvalyeret.com/category/blog/product/

Did episode 4 get you thinking about how to flip your product topology pyramid and move more work towards empowered product teams and groups? I hope so...

The reality is that in a multi-product organization, it’s almost impossible to manage ALL the work in these teams. Some work will still require collaboration across product groups as well as strategic consideration by product and even business leadership. You might be calling it your product portfolio.

In this episode, we explore how to apply product thinking to this cross-product / organizational level work:

* Managing work that spans multiple product groups or the entire organization

* Applying product thinking to strategic initiatives

* Examples of strategic bets

* Balancing work across empowered teams, product groups, and organization-wide initiatives

About the Navigating the Product Operating Model Landscape Audio Series

What You’ll Learn:

* Why Agile Feature Factories Fail—and What to Do About It

* Assessing Your Current Operating Model—Are You Stuck in Projects?

* Principles of Effective Product Operating Models

* When does a Product Operating Model make sense?

* Making It Real: Mapping Your Trail Toward Transformation

Subscribe to the free audio mini course here: https://yuvalyeret.com/from-buzzwords-to-clarity-product-operating-model-audio-mini-course/

This is for you if you’re:

* A Head of Product, Technology, Engineering, or Product Ops, trying to apply or scale product-led practices

* Tired of theory or comprehensive perspective frameworks and hungry for real-world strategies that work

* Too busy to sit down for training or even watch a video “masterclass” (Webinar in disguise…) and prefer to consume audio podcasts.

* Not a fan of 6-figure, inspiring slide decks left behind by expensive consulting firms and product experts.

Need help navigating the product transformation landscape? https://yuvalyeret.com/work-with-me/figure-out-your-product-operating-model-strategy/

Interested in more of my insights on the Product world? https://yuvalyeret.com/category/blog/product/

Now that we’ve established our goal - creating empowered product teams- let’s discuss how to scale a product organization using these empowered product teams as a building block and connecting them without sacrificing agility and product orientation.

In this episode:

* Challenges of maintaining agility as organizations grow

* Introduction to the “flipped pyramid” concept

* Types of teams needed for effective scaling

* Strategies for “descaling” to push work back to empowered teams

About the Navigating the Product Operating Model Landscape Audio Series

What You’ll Learn:

* Why Agile Feature Factories Fail—and What to Do About It

* Assessing Your Current Operating Model—Are You Stuck in Projects?

* Principles of Effective Product Operating Models

* When does a Product Operating Model make sense?

* Making It Real: Mapping Your Trail Toward Transformation

Subscribe to the free audio mini course here: https://yuvalyeret.com/from-buzzwords-to-clarity-product-operating-model-audio-mini-course/

This is for you if you’re:

* A Head of Product, Technology, Engineering, or Product Ops trying to apply or scale product-led practices

* Tired of theory or comprehensive perspective frameworks and hungry for real-world strategies that work

* Too busy to sit down for training or even watch a video “masterclass” (Webinar in disguise…) and prefer to consume audio podcasts.

* Not a fan of 6-figure, inspiring slide decks left behind by expensive consulting firms and product experts.

Need help navigating the product transformation landscape? https://yuvalyeret.com/work-with-me/figure-out-your-product-operating-model-strategy/

Interested in more of my insights on the Product world? https://yuvalyeret.com/category/blog/product/

This episode of the audio series introduces a core pillar of the modern product organization - empowered product teams:

* What does a truly empowered product team look like?

* Contrast between ideal product professionals and reality in feature factories

* Challenges faced by product people in feature factory environments

* The struggle to build effective product capabilities in technology organizations

* Misalignment between strategic product roles and tactical team needs

About the Navigating the Product Operating Model Landscape Audio Series

What You’ll Learn:

* Why Agile Feature Factories Fail—and What to Do About It

* Assessing Your Current Operating Model—Are You Stuck in Projects?

* Principles of Effective Product Operating Models

* When does a Product Operating Model make sense?

* Making It Real: Mapping Your Trail Toward Transformation

Subscribe to the free audio mini course here: https://yuvalyeret.com/from-buzzwords-to-clarity-product-operating-model-audio-mini-course/

This is for you if you’re:

* A Head of Product, Technology, Engineering, or Product Ops, trying to apply or scale product-led practices

* Tired of theory or comprehensive perspective frameworks and hungry for real-world strategies that work

* Too busy to sit down for training or even watch a video “masterclass” (Webinar in disguise…) and prefer to consume audio podcasts.

* Not a fan of 6-figure, inspiring slide decks left behind by expensive consulting firms and product experts.

Need help navigating the product transformation landscape? https://yuvalyeret.com/work-with-me/figure-out-your-product-operating-model-strategy/

Interested in more of my insights on the Product world? https://yuvalyeret.com/category/blog/product/