The AI Engagement Lifecycle with Endava, Dava.X.AI, and Miro

Endava set out to reinvent how IT services get delivered in an AI-native world. Dava.X.AI is the group inside Endava driving that shift. Miro is the workspace they're building it on. Together they've shipped Davaflow — an AI engagement lifecycle that runs from signal to explore to govern to evolve, with humans and agents working alongside each other the whole way.

Takeaways

Reframe from value capture to value creation — don't use AI to make existing processes 10–15% better, reimagine the work entirely from an AI-first perspective.

IT services hit its "ChatGPT moment" two years ago when clients and analysts started asking Endava why they were needed if AI could just write the code.

AI is becoming a method, not a tool — just as Agile organized humans to do work, this new method organizes agents and the people working alongside them.

The technology question is largely settled; the change management question isn't — quality has hit the inflection point, and what remains is the human shift, much like Waterfall-to-Agile.

DavaFlow runs in four phases — Signal, Explore, Govern, and Evolve — moving from identifying the right problem, through virtual personas and prototypes, to governing agent output, to evolving in production.

Chat is the wrong interface for most of this work — humans are visual creatures, and tools like Miro give LLMs context that a chat box never could.

AI-driven work can produce better traceability than humans ever did — every decision and prototype connects back through the chain of thought, what Joe called "traceability on steroids."

Anyone can buy the tools — what separates enterprise work from vibe-coding chaos is policy-as-code, defined skills, and human-in-the-loop checkpoints.

Adoption happens in baby steps, not the full vision — showing people the end of the journey overwhelms them, so start at signal and layer in each next step.

The hardest part is the identity question — engineers liked writing code and designers liked crafting prototypes, and the shift is a growth-mindset problem, not a skills problem.

Links from the Podcast

• 
  Endava: https://www.endava.com/
• Dava.X.AI https://www.endava.com/dava-x/dava-x-ai
• Miro: https://miro.com/index/

Upcoming Miro Canvas Events

• Main Canvas 2026 landing page: https://canvas.miro.com/
• Register for the streaming event on May 19 where Joe will be speaking:  https://canvas.miro.com/sanfrancisco/virtual-keynote
• Register for the in-person event on May 19th in San Francisco where Joe is speaking live:  https://canvas.miro.com/sanfrancisco
• Register for the in-person event on June 2nd in London where Matt will be speaking live: https://canvas.miro.com/london
• Register for the in-person event on June 16th in Sydney where Wesley Fagan the APAC SVP for Strategy and Chief Design Officer at Endava will be speaking live: https://canvas.miro.com/sydney

Contacting the Guests

• Matt Cloke https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattcloke/
• Joe Dunleavy https://www.linkedin.com/in/joedunleavy/
• Dave Ross https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidmross/
• Dave Prior https://linktr.ee/mrsungo

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Endava and AI Transformation

08:54 Navigating the AI Landscape: Challenges and Opportunities

17:52 The Evolution of Miro and AI Integration

24:00 Dava Flow: The AI Engagement Lifecycle

25:49 The Power of Visual Context in AI

27:03 Enhancing Contextual Understanding with AI

29:12 Temporal Dimensions in Decision Making

31:27 Navigating Change in Organizational Mindsets

35:40 Demonstrating Value to the C-Suite

38:13 Embracing the Future of Work

41:09 Amplifying Human Creativity with AI

David Marquet - Distancing - How Great Leaders Make Better Decisions

David Marquet is back! He's the author of 'Turn The Ship Around', 'Leadership is Language', and the co-author of 'Distancing - How Great Leaders Reframe to Make Better Decisions'.  David is always great in an interview, and this is no exception. He was even kind enough to share my favorite story from Leadership is Language.  

Check out the interview and then pick up the book!

You can find the interview here.

You can pick up the book here.

(Re)Defining Project Success with Dennis Stevens

PMI has redefined how we measure Project Success. OrgWright's Dennis Stevens joins drunkenPM Radio for a discussion on how to interpret and apply this at the project and organizational level.

In this conversation, Dave Prior and Dennis Stevens explore the evolving definition of project success as outlined in PMI's recent report. They discuss the implications of this new definition, emphasizing the need for continuous transformation in organizations and the role of project managers in delivering value. The conversation also touches on the importance of reducing friction in project management, the impact of AI on the profession, and the necessity for project managers to navigate the political landscape of project success. Ultimately, they highlight the need for project managers to adapt to a rapidly changing environment and the skills required to thrive in this new landscape.

You can check out the interview here: 
https://www.projectmanagement.com/blog-post/78332/-re-defining-project-success-with-dennis-stevens

Tips For Engaging Big Consulting to Help You Prepare For Transformation w/ George Schlitz

When preparing to introduce a massive organizational change like Agile, many organizations take the approach of bringing in an outside company to figure out "how" to do it, and then a separate company to introduce the actual change. 

George Schlitz has spent a lot of time leading those implementation efforts. In this interview, he shares some of the lessons he’s learned about what a company can do to set itself up for success when they engage with the third party figuring out the “how” and also what a company can do to set itself up for the opposite of success.

Click here for the podcast

Resistance to Change with Christine Converse and Ross Beurmann

Christine Converse and Ross Beurmann are back and this time the conversation centers around the problems we face when trying to create change within a team or organization. More specifically, we talk about how you can influence others to change when you have no authority, the people you are trying to help may have no desire to be helped. Whether you are working in an agile environment, a traditional organization, or something that is careening back and forth between the two, this interview is going to give you a lot to think about.

You can find the podcast here.

Rebuilding Trust in Your Organization - Charlotte DiBartolomeo

"The problem with fear is that it kills creativity"

My interview with Charlotte, DiBartolomeo, CEO and Founder of The Red Kite Project focuses on how to rebuild trust and safety within your organization.

The interview is up on ProjectManagement.com

System of Delivery vs. System of Transformation

Click here for the podcast



When people talk about Agile, they often talk about the approach they are taking: Scrum, Kanban, Extreme Programming, SAFe, LeSS, DAD, Nexus, etc. These and the other frameworks and methodologies that could be considered to fall under the Agile umbrella are Systems of Delivery because they are techniques for delivering.


There's often an assumption that if we adopt the System of Delivery, our organization will Transform to Agile. Sometimes this happens, but often, organizations need more than a System of Delivery. They need a way to go about helping their organization evolve into a state where it's capable of realizing the benefits of the various Systems of Delivery. This journey from your current state, into a state that's capable of fully leveraging the System of Delivery, may actually require a System of Transformation.


In this episode of SoundNotes, our CEO & Founder, Mike Cottmeyer spends some time with Dave digging into what a System of Transformation is, why this is different than a System of Delivery, how the two are connected, and why having a System of Transformation is such a critical part of your organization's ability to realize the benefits of taking an Agile approach to delivering work.


Click here for the podcast

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Letting Go of the Waterfall, Embracing Agile, and Mixed Martial Arts w/ Brandon Dudley (2/14/19)

A SoundNotes interview with LeadingAgile Senior Consultant Brandon Dudley on his transition from waterfall to Agile and how Brazilian Jiu Jitsu has impact his approach to working with clients on Agile transformation. (2/14/19)

http://bit.ly/2N4dmt8

Agile 2016 - Video Interview with Mike Cottmeyer on Enterprise Transformation

When I joined LeadingAgile a little over a year ago, one of the things that tipped the scale for me was the approach that Mike Cottmeyer had come up with for approaching Agile Transformation. Rather than the standard "we take you from the sucky misery you wallow in now to a magical land of agile wonderment", Mike's approach - with the compass and the basecamps, allows the organization to take small steps along the journey, transforming in stages. It also allows you to stop along the way if/when that makes business sense. This might be implied in the approach other organization's take (I'm sure they'll say it is if you ask them), but I was/am a big fan of the way it is articulated by my co-workers at LeadingAgile.

And last week, at Agile 2016, Mike gave a presentation on "An Executive’s Step-by-Step Guide to Leading Large-Scale Agile Transformation" to over 400 people. I had the chance to sit down with Mike and interview him after his session.



If you'd like to see the slides from his session, you can find them here.

And if you'd like to see any of the other video interviews from last week, you can find them here.

Agile Transformation and Craftsmanship of the Self

In this SoundNotes interview, LeadingAgile’s Tom Churchwell explains what it’s like to stick with an Agile transformation all the way through, the Agile and Beyond conference, and the fundamental questions that lead to craftsmanship of the self.



Tom Churchwell Notes 

Interview Begins 1:48
Background on Tom 2:14
Tom’s path to Agile 3:23
The long haul of transformation 4:20
I lost my cube, but I got this shirt 5:05
The long haul 6:05
I trust you implicitly from right out of the gate 7:16
Creating a safe space to make it work 8:00
Change is slow 8:30
Agile Beyond 9:55
Reorienting around excellence 10:45
Ae we still pushing the boundaries? 13:35
Creating the Safe Space 14:15
Increased focus on the human side of Agile 16:00
What do you do when excellence fails? 17:45
I don’t believe that there are dark places 18:38
If your team is in the doldrums, it is the fault of leadership 19:24
Enroll and Inspire, nor command and control 19:40
Craftsmanship and art are a part of what high technology people do 21:00
Bob Hoover - an amazing scary story about trust 23:00
We need a safe space where people can make mistakes 24:25
On volunteering and how it can inspire you 26:30
The fundamental questions of the self 32:30
Tom’s mission and craftsmanship of the self 33:18
Volunteering for Agile and Beyond 35:30
Getting in touch with Tom 37:15

Tom can be reached at tchurchwell@twitter.com