Videos

I Think I Was Wrong About AI Coding | Enterprise Vibe Coding Explained For a long time, I've been sceptical about claims that AI can replace software developers. I've argued that software development is about far more than writing code. It involves design thinking, stakeholder management, architecture, quality assurance, security, accountability, and understanding complex business problems. But after sitting down with digital transformation and AI specialist Mark Strefford, I'm beginning to think I may have underestimated just how quickly AI software development is evolving. In this episode of The Common Sense CTO Podcast, we explore what happens when AI moves beyond being a coding assistant and starts acting like an entire software engineering team. We discuss: ✅ Enterprise Vibe Coding – is it real? ✅ Can AI agents replace parts of a software development team? ✅ AI-generated code without developers reading the codebase ✅ AI software delivery lifecycles and agentic engineering teams ✅ Testing, quality assurance and accountability in AI-built systems ✅ Why critical thinking may become the most important engineering skill ✅ The future of junior developers and software engineering careers ✅ AI code reviews, security reviews and automated testing ✅ Enterprise legacy modernisation using AI ✅ Local LLMs vs cloud AI models ✅ The economics of AI development and the true cost of tokens ✅ Agentic customers, autonomous buying behaviour and the future of digital products Mark shares practical examples of: • Building software almost entirely through AI • Using multiple AI agents to perform engineering activities • AI identifying defects humans had missed • Orchestrating specialised models for different tasks • Enterprise-scale software development with AI augmentation • Where humans remain essential in the loop Whether you're a CTO, software engineer, architect, technology leader, founder, business leader or simply curious about the future of software development, this conversation explores one of the biggest questions facing the industry: Are we approaching a world where AI doesn't just help developers, but becomes the software team itself? In the interest of balance I should say that I still believe we're some way away from losing your development team altogether, but I am more convinced than I was before this conversation that team augmentation is a reality now (as opposed to just assistance). Some of what Mark has been doing is publicly available at this GitHub address... https://github.com/markstrefford/claude-skills

In this first episode of The Common Sense CTO Podcast, I'm joined by John Nolan. John is a true Agile Pioneer, a contemporary of Kent Beck, and co-founder of Connextra, the "XP from the ground up" business that introduced the "As a... I want.. So that..." form of User Story. He and I have known each other for a quarter of a century through our involvement in an innovative Software Practice conference series either side of the turn of the Century, and we reconnected recently after a hiatus of a couple of decades, to have some really interesting chats about those early days of agile, the evolution of software development over in the intervening two decades and the state of the art now around the opportunities and fears around AI in our space. www.commonsensecto.com www.stepthinking.com

If you're a business leader, frustrated that your technology provision isn't keeping pace with growth. You're probably already thinking about some kind of transformation. And the real measure of success in transformation isn't the technology itself. It's what the business can achieve because of it. Transformation should deliver more than just a polished PowerPoint deck. It should deliver real, tangible and sustainable business outcomes. Ideally leaving the business in a position where they no longer have to do transformation ever again. In this video I talk about 5 specific examples of real tangible business value from transformation programmes I've led. If you are considering transformation in any aspect of your technology provision and you want tangible, business outcome focused success, send me a message or leave me a comment below and let's start the conversation. matt@stepthinking.com

Are you a business leader who wonders why the tech team always seems so busy, but progress is slower than you need it to be? There's lots of reasons why that can happen, and not always to do with the technology teams themselves. Three very common reasons are: 1. Constantly changing priorities 2. Unclear ownership leading to slow decision-making 3. Excessive governance and reporting overlaid on top of work in an attempt to speed it up when things aren't going as fast as you want them to, which just ultimately results in slowing it down further. Most technology teams don't suddenly get faster just by being asked to work harder. They become faster when the business creates the conditions for better delivery. If you recognise yourself or your business in that scenario, ask yourself some searching questions. Is your technology team not up to the job, or actually, do you just need to create better conditions for them to succeed

Many businesses say that technology is critical, but then treat it like a support function, and that gap is costing them more than they realise. We talk a lot about how important technology is to modern businesses. We say it's strategic. We say it's critical. We say it underpins everything. But if you actually look at how many organisations operate, there's still a gap. Over the course of my career I've found a handful of things that consistently help technology leaders establish credibility and earn that voice at that top table. By the end of this video (6 minutes from now) you'll know what those things are too! www.stepthinking.com

Most leaders don't get caught out because they're incompetent. They get caught out because they trusted the first answer they were given. As a leader, you're often under time pressure and you're relying on your team to furnish you with information. So when something sounds reasonable on first answering the temptation is to go with it. And to be fair, you'll get away with that seven or eight times out of 10, but it's the other two or three times out of 10, where the answer wasn't right, that will come back to bite you in the future. And it's not because people are generally trying to mislead you, that's quite rare. It's just that they've got a narrow field of view and they're working with partial information as well. So a simple technique that I use is triangulation, not because I don't believe the first person, I'm absolutely sure that they've given you what they believe to be the right answer. But another two or three people might have a different lens that just adds to the mix. If I hear the same thing from two or three other people, I can move forward with greater confidence knowing that that answer is more likely to be correct. And if I don't get the same answer, I know that I've gotta dig a bit deeper. It might take a little bit more time, but it saves all sorts of headaches later. One perspective on a problem is an opinion. Two or three matching opinions becomes a reality. For more tech leadership insights, subscribe to the channel or follow me.

Lots of leaders fall into the trap of confusing urgency with importance. Just because something's loud, last minute and gets chased for every five seconds doesn't mean it's the most important thing you should be working on right now. A lot of leaders get dragged into false urgency. Someone shouts loudly, an email suddenly appears a deadline suddenly looms. Before you know it, your whole day has been hijacked. But importance is different. Importance is about value, consequence, and strategic relevance. It's about the things that genuinely move the business forward, reduce risk, or improve performance. Urgency is often about noise and importance is about strategic impact. Most people know this as the Eisenhower Matrix, but not many people use it properly. We end up living in the urgent work. And not moving forward the important things that will actually move the dial on your business. Now, obviously some things are urgent and important and you do have to deal with them, but plenty of things are urgent only because somebody else has failed to plan properly or because they want an answer faster, not because the issue actually matters more than other things on your list. Good leaders learn to pause and ask: - Is this genuinely important? - What happens if it waits? - What will I be neglecting if I jump on this now? Because if you spend all day reacting to the urgent things, you'll start missing your commitments to other people for things you were already doing. You'll constantly feel like you're just chasing your tail and you'll end up progressing somebody else's priorities and not your own. Urgent does not necessarily equal importance. Be really clear about the distinction in your own mind. Subscribe for more leadership tips and insights. @CommonSenseCTO www.stepthinking.com

Most leaders don't get caught out because they're incompetent. They get caught out because they trusted the first answer they were given. As a leader, you're often under time pressure and you're relying on your team to furnish you with information. So when something sounds reasonable on first answering the temptation is to go with it. And to be fair, you'll get away with that seven or eight times out of 10, but it's the other two or three times out of 10, where the answer wasn't right, that will come back to bite you in the future. And it's not because people are generally trying to mislead you, that's quite rare. It's just that they've got a narrow field of view and they're working with partial information as well. So a simple technique that I use is triangulation, not because I don't believe the first person, I'm absolutely sure that they've given you what they believe to be the right answer. But another two or three people might have a different lens that just adds to the mix. If I hear the same thing from two or three other people, I can move forward with greater confidence knowing that that answer is more likely to be correct. And if I don't get the same answer, I know that I've gotta dig a bit deeper. It might take a little bit more time, but it saves all sorts of headaches later. One perspective on a problem is an opinion. Two or three matching opinions becomes a reality. For more tech leadership insights, subscribe to the channel or follow me. www.stepthinking.com