Expert 3 – Michael Spayd

Michael Spayd is the founder and chief executive of The Collective Edge. His work can be summed up well by a quote from a client, who said, “If you’re not ready for change, don’t call Michael.” That felt like a real compliment for Michael, and a powerful summary of his life’s mission: Michael’s purpose is “transformation.” This purpose has evolved of late to be specifically “transforming transformers,” as he focuses his teaching, systemic healing, and shadow consulting work on growing change agents.

What are your thoughts on the whole philosophical shift from requirements to user stories? Why was that so important, and what was the impact?

Well, I started with user stories back in 2001, and that was really edgy at the time. User stories were perceived as only for small teams and non-mission-critical projects. I’ve been pondering this quite a bit since our last discussion...