To our friends: I want to thank you for becoming part of the InnovativeTeams.NET community. Over the past year, I have enjoyed exploring ways that teams become empowered to achieve more and focus their activities to provide value. With AI transformation everywhere, our companies and organizations have become entrenched in understanding effective change management. With the potential of AI, organizations large and small are reflecting upon how we create value today and how those value streams can become more potent in the future.
Over the Christmas break, I spent time playing with major coding agent technologies like Claude Code, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot, and GitHub SpecKit. The world of AI coding agents has disrupted software engineering, and I have to confess that my feelings here are mixed:
Increased Velocity: Over a long extended break, I have historically only accomplished one “side hustle fun app” during a Christmas break period. Using agent tools, I have prototyped three to five new app concepts that impact my work or family life. When you’re building a software system, it can feel like you are unwrapping a fun story; each feature can teach you something new. With AI coding, experiments flow more quickly.
The Need for Craftsmanship: Like many software engineers, I rejoice when I see my coding agent make a wrong turn (i.e., “Yes—I am still needed!”). Over the years, I have enjoyed the study of thought leaders like Uncle Bob Martin and Steven Smith, who continue to teach that our industry needs craftsmanship. In 2026, teams need to continue to learn how to make maintainable, scalable systems that are easy to test. With agents, Test-Driven Development (TDD) has become trivial to implement in new codebases.
Shifting Priorities: It has become interesting to reflect upon the shift in priority due to agent technology. In a world of agents, it becomes more vital that leaders and teams elevate each other, grow positive culture, and rethink processes. Professionals will find culture, agile and strategy more vital since agents can elevate the level of thinking. As engineers, we can continue to advocate for a great user experience. The total user experience includes UX, performance, personalization, clarity of use, security, and privacy.
The Human Element: While agents will make some things faster, agents in 2026 will continue to fail to create a bold vision, see the big picture, or fight for the details that create “software as art.”
In the previous year, I am glad we worked closely with our community partners to continue elevating early-stage devs on their journeys. Thank you to
Orlando Devs, GDG, Indienomicon, Black Tech Orlando, and the DotNet Users Group of Orlando for their efforts to open doors for others. Big shout out to InnovateOrlando.IO in their efforts to celebrate Orlando technology and connect various community movements.
While the job market has been challenging for some, I do enjoy cheering on our community members who have considered becoming business leaders or founders. I’m excited about helping to grow our tribe of early-stage devs and connecting them to opportunities and growth.
In 2026, we have a clear mission to elevate leadership and team collaboration skills. People continue to matter over “processes and tools.” How will teams collaborate with AI in the future? How do we continue to shape our community and organizations to value people and the dignity of work?
My brother has a wonderful talent as a student of history. He has a good way of suggesting what might happen based on observations of the past. Borrowing from his playbook, I decided to start exploring early-stage space program stories and documentaries. My family really enjoyed watching the movie Hidden Figures, the true story of amazing women who helped accomplish key moments in the US space race through their effort, talent, and skills in technology and math. I love the moments when you see the systems of math pushed to their limits. In those moments, leaders and teams had to “do the right thing” or find the “art” that the systems fail to see.
I greatly appreciated the story connected to Dorothy Vaughan. At that period in history, “computers” were people with strong talents in mathematics. Dorothy Vaughan learned about the plans to implement an IBM computer that would potentially displace her team of talented engineers and professionals. As leaders, we are often called to move first. With that in mind, the story talks about how she invested her personal time and effort to learn FORTRAN and computer fundamentals. As a leader, she passed on her learning to her team and helped them make a critical pivot from being “computers” to becoming one of the first programming teams. Really love this movie.
It’s funny how history can repeat itself. What new doors will we open for each other in 2026?
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