For most of this year, my posts have been about delivery systems — burn-ups, throughput, metrics, dashboards. The quantifiable side of work. And while all of that is important, I’ve realised that somewhere along the way we risk losing sight of what made Source Agility start in the first place: helping people perform at their best through the work itself — learning about themselves as they deliver, not just delivering faster.

The Age of Measurement

Modern organisations are awash with data. We can measure productivity, engagement, NPS, satisfaction, velocity, flow efficiency — everything has a dashboard.

But as the workplace has become more asynchronous and distributed, especially since COVID, something quietly slipped away: the felt experience of working together. The messy, energising, human moments when ideas collide and new ways forward appear.

For many newer practitioners, this is just how work has always been — chat threads instead of eye contact, emojis instead of presence. And while digital tools make collaboration efficient, they rarely make it alive.

What We’ve Lost: Presence

Years ago, Otto Scharmer from the Presencing Institute described presence as that collective energy when people create a better future together. It’s something you can feel in the room — the spark of a good workshop, the hum of a high-trust team, the sense that something meaningful is happening.

That presence doesn’t transmit well through a Teams window.
And in the same way that “post-Agile” has become a thing — Agile no longer being the silver bullet it was once sold as — our ways of working risk becoming more transactional. Agile coaches, change managers, facilitators: the people once responsible for holding the human space are disappearing from teams. And with them, sometimes, goes the permission to talk about what it actually feels like to work here.

What We Can Do About It

1. Notice What’s Missing

The first step is simply noticing.
Noticing when meetings feel mechanical. When teams stop laughing. When the work feels dry. For some people — especially those who began their careers post-COVID — this might be the only version of “normal” they’ve ever known. Awareness alone can shift behaviour.

2. Re-establish Human Roles

We need people in the system whose job it is to talk about people — not HR, not process auditors, but facilitators of humanness. In the past, that was often the Agile coach or change lead. Whether we call them culture stewards, connectors, or team catalysts, their role is to bring feeling back into the delivery conversation.

3. Act Human, Especially Under Pressure

Ultimately, the simplest way to re-introduce humanness is to model it. Pause before the next sprint review and ask, “How are we, really?” Make space for silence. Celebrate small wins. Be kind, even when the pressure’s on. Culture isn’t a policy — it’s a series of small choices made by humans under stress.

A Closing Thought

We don’t have to choose between data and humanity. The best delivery systems balance both — clarity and compassion, measurement and meaning.

The dashboards will always matter. But so does the spark in the room.
Let’s not forget to look up from the metrics and make eye contact once in a while.