Over the past six years, I’ve had the chance to work closely with Robert Briese – not only as a friend, but as a trusted colleague and business partner in Agile transformation projects. We’ve coached teams and leadership together at Yello, adidas, and 50Hertz. I’ve been part of his Certified LeSS Practitioner (CLP) trainings, and we’ve shared stages and reflections at the LeSS Conferences in Berlin and Madrid.
Robert is one of only 29 certified LeSS trainers worldwide. His ability to translate deep systems thinking into practical team and product development work is rare. And as I continue my own journey toward becoming a LeSS Trainer, our conversations have only deepened. What struck me in this conversation wasn’t just Robert’s expertise, but the clarity with which he speaks about complexity – and his willingness to question even the frameworks he teaches. It reminded me that staying agile isn’t about having the answers, but about staying present to the real work.
This podcast episode captures a long-form conversation between us – recorded in his garden at the end of the summer in 2024 – where we speak openly about the real challenges of scaling agile thinking, building meaningful products, and finding grounding as independent professionals. In this blog post, I want to expand on four of the core topics we touched on in the episode. Some key themes in this episode include::
- What systems thinking really means in product development
- Why Scrum alone doesn’t make your company agile
- How LeSS brings product focus to large team environments
- Why “productivity” metrics like feature count and lines of code are misleading
- The power of working directly with customers in product discovery
- How mindfulness and intention can shape how we lead transformations
Inner Doubts and the Freelance Mindset
Robert opens up about the ongoing doubt that’s part of working as a freelancer: the uncertainty between projects, the lack of stability, and the constant question of relevance in a fast-moving field. He describes the emotional complexity of delivering high-level work while never knowing exactly what comes next. It’s a mindset many freelancers and entrepreneurs will recognize – the drive for autonomy and growth. This space of not-knowing is what ultimately led Robert to discover Agile in 2011. He realized that the traditional tools he was using in SAP project environments were fundamentally unfit for the complexity he was facing. Agile wasn’t just a new set of methods – it was a way to stop fighting complexity and start working with it. That shift, from managing to adapting, shaped the way Robert sees teams, systems, and leadership today. This really resonated with me. As someone who’s also navigated the ambiguity of project-based work, I’ve come to see that the emotional resilience we build as Solopreneurs often mirrors the adaptability we ask of the teams we coach.
System Thinking at the Core of LeSS
LeSS (Large-Scale Scrum) is not just Scrum with extra layers. In fact, it intentionally removes layers. At its heart lies a commitment to systems thinking – the idea that every structure, policy, and decision in an organization is part of an interconnected whole. Robert explains this with clarity. It’s not just about agile teams doing sprints. If the way you hire, compensate, and report is still rooted in silos and control, you’re going to create friction – or worse, systemic failure.
“One of the key ideas is systems thinking. It’s about really understanding that the entire organization is a system — and that every small influence matters. How you pay people, how you hire, how teams are structured — all of it impacts the system as a whole. If you’re only focusing on improving HR practices, for example, you might make HR more efficient — but at the same time, you could completely disrupt the balance of the larger system.”
— Robert Briese
It’s also one of the most challenging shifts for organizations to make. Leaders often want local optimization — better sprints, faster delivery — without questioning how incentives, silos, or reporting lines might be undermining that very goal. This is the level LeSS operates on. It encourages organizations to look at the whole product, not just the team level. One Product Owner, one backlog, multiple teams – and the willingness to see how everything is connected.
Product Discovery and Customer Centricity
Too often, Agile is reduced to velocity charts and ticket refinements. But for Robert, product development is not about building requirements – it’s about discovering value. It’s knowledge work, not labor. You’re not just delivering what was requested. You’re co-creating with the customer to find what’s needed. He stresses the importance of including real customers in the refinement process – not just analysts or stakeholders. And it’s this process of product discovery, Robert dedicated his current professional career path to.
“In software or product development, we rarely know what the client truly needs — even when they tell us. They might ask for something specific, only to realize it doesn’t solve their problem once they have it. That’s the nature of knowledge work: it’s complex, evolving, and hard to define upfront. That’s why involving users early, especially during refinement, is key. You need their insights, their pain points, their evolving needs — otherwise, you risk building the wrong thing with great efficiency.”
— Robert Briese
It’s a subtle but crucial shift. Instead of asking “What do they want us to build?” we ask “How can we learn what truly helps?” That learning happens not in planning rooms, but in real conversations, co-discovery, and feedback loops.
Productivity Theater and Meaningful Work
One of the strongest moments in our conversation is when Robert calls out the illusion of productivity that still runs through many Agile environments. It’s easy to get busy. Easy to write a lot of code. Easy to deliver features. But the question remains: are we building the right thing?
“You could be ten times as productive. But if you build the wrong features, no one will buy your product. All those lines of code? Meaningless. It’s productivity theater if no one needs what you built.”
— Robert Briese
I’ve seen this in so many teams: high energy, great output — but no clear value. Robert’s reminder that we should measure meaning, not speed, cuts through so much noise in the Agile space. This is where Agile becomes meaningful again. Not as a methodology to follow, but as a discipline of value creation. And it’s also where leadership matters most – in setting outcomes over outputs, and in being brave enough to say no to what doesn’t serve.
Conclusion: Slow Thinking, Deep Work, and the Long Game
This Heroe’s Journey with Robert isn’t filled with the magic potion or fast solutions. It’s reflective, detailed, and rooted in years of real work. It reminds me that agility isn’t just about changing processes. It’s about shifting how we see work, how we relate to uncertainty, and how we design for learning. And maybe, every once in a while, it’s about recording a podcast slowly, under trees, with a good friend — and letting the complexity of the conversation breathe. As I continue my own path toward becoming a LeSS trainer, conversations like this remind me what it’s really about: not scaling methods, but scaling learning, connection, and intention.
