AI At Work: Dave West On Scrum, AI, And Better Stakeholder Collaboration

How do you keep product teams aligned when AI is speeding everything up, but people, priorities, and expectations are still pulling in different directions?In this episode of AI At Work, I sat down with Dave West, CEO of Scrum.org, to talk about one of the most overlooked challenges in modern product development: stakeholder collaboration. While so much of the conversation around AI focuses on faster delivery, automation, and productivity, Dave makes the case that the real pressure point is still human. As teams ship more, communicate faster, and rely on AI to remove friction, weak stakeholder relationships become even harder to ignore.We unpack why Scrum.org has launched its new self-paced course, Effective Stakeholder Collaboration for Scrum Teams, and why Dave believes this topic deserves far more attention than it usually gets. He explains how AI is exposing old cracks inside organizations, from fuzzy expectations and unspoken assumptions to inconsistent communication and poor decision-making. We also talk about why product teams need a more disciplined approach to stakeholder engagement, one that is clear, intentional, and built around trust rather than vague alignment.What I found especially interesting in this conversation was Dave’s view that this is less about job titles and more about how real people work together. We discussed how product owners, Scrum Masters, and developers can build stronger relationships without creating confusion, why empathy and better listening can change the direction of a product, and how segmenting stakeholders by needs, motivations, and context can reduce what Dave describes as stakeholder drag. It is a practical conversation for anyone working in product, Agile, Scrum, or AI-driven delivery.We also went beyond the course itself and into the wider debate about whether Agile and Scrum still matter in the age of AI. Dave had a lot to say on that, and he did not hold back. His argument is simple: AI may help teams build faster, but it also makes it painfully obvious when they are building the wrong thing. If you care about AI at work, Scrum, product management, stakeholder engagement, or the future of Agile, this episode has plenty to think about. Do you believe AI will strengthen stakeholder collaboration or expose just how broken it already is, and what side of that debate are you on? Share your thoughts.