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

Making the Case for Middle Management with Dennis Stevens

Dennis Stevens joins drunkenpm for a deep dive into the challenges faced by middle management in organizational change. Dennis argues that Agile and transformation efforts often fail because they treat middle managers as a roadblock, when in fact, these managers are simply victims of a badly designed system. The core idea is that companies shouldn't try to eliminate these roles but must instead design specific organizational "containers" and routines that force middle managers to leverage human nature (like self-interest and competition) to drive innovation. The goal is to shift strategy from a static plan to a dynamic process that lives in the interactions between people, ensuring all the work being done is strategically aligned, measurable, and ultimately successful.

You can find the podcast here: https://tinyurl.com/4tp8hcct

Links From The Intro

Productivity Survival with Mark Kilby and Dave Prior 

• https://www.tickettailor.com/events/markkilby/1905697

No One is Coming to Save You

• Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/yhdk785j
• Leanpub: https://leanpub.com/surfthechaos

You Need Comms More Than You Think with Ashley Lucio

In this conversation, Dave Prior speaks with Ashley Lucio about her extensive experience in communications, particularly focusing on the differences between internal communications and marketing. They discuss the challenges organizations face in deploying AI technologies and the importance of having communication professionals involved in these processes. Ashley emphasizes the need for effective communication strategies to manage organizational change and the potential pitfalls of neglecting this aspect. The conversation also touches on the evolving role of AI in communications and the necessity for a balanced approach that leverages technology while maintaining human insight.

The podcast is here: https://tinyurl.com/42h5evwd

From Theater to Flow: A Conversation with Ross Beurmann

Join Dave Prior as he sits down with Ross Beurmann, author of "From Theater to Flow: Rebuilding the System Behind Agility." In this episode, they delve into the challenges of agile transformations, the concept of "Agile Theater," and the importance of focusing on the middle management to drive meaningful change. Ross shares insights from his book and discusses the need for organizations to rethink their approach to agility.

Key Topics:

• The pitfalls of "Agile Theater" and how to avoid them 
• The role of middle management in successful transformations 
• Ross's unique approach to integrating governance and agility 
• Real-world examples and lessons learned from Ross's consulting experience

You can find the podcast here.

Developing Trust In Your Organization w/ Gil Broza

Gil Broza is back for a second interview about his new book "Deliver Better Results: How to Unlock Your Organization's Potential". I asked Gil to come back for a second interview because I wanted to have a follow-up conversation about how to (re)build trust in an organization. So much of what Gil presents in his book is rooted in trust I wanted to get his take on how a potentially toxic org can create trust where they may be little or none.

You can find the podcast here.

Is this the Darkest Agile Timeline?

George Schlitz joins the podcast to discuss the current state of Agile, whether or not this is the darkest timeline, how we got here, how to make it better, and where to look for hope.

If you aren’t familiar with The Darkest Timeline, in the show Community there was a storyline where a random occurrence created multiple parallel timelines. A roll of the dice created six possible ways things could have gone… basically a six-sided multiverse. 

And one of the parallels created is THE DARKEST TIMELINE. It’s basically the Lemony Snicket timeline of worst case scenario where Captain Kirk is sporting his Van Dyke beard, Thomas Wayne is Batman instead of Bruce Wayne, it rains all the time, you miss every bus, never made that play in the big game, never asked that person to the prom, never got that promotion… you get the idea.

You can listen to the podcast here: http://tinyurl.com/ndkdkrxp

The Journey to Enterprise Agility w/ Daryl Kulak and Hong Li

 

In their book The Journey to Enterprise Agility - Systems Thinking and Organizational Legacy, Daryl Kulak and Hong Li share stories about their experiences working with organizations that are on the journey towards agility and explain how this shift in approach works, why so many organizations fail at adopting agile, and how the changes they recommend impacts the way we think and work with people at all levels of the enterprise.

You can find the interview here.

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

Knowing How to Measure Progress in Agile Transformation w/ Ross Beurmann

Ross Beurmann and I explore how to make sure you measure the right things to gain insights into how to improve your Agile Transformation. (And the impact measuring the wrong things can have on your agility to create lasting organizational change and deliver value for the company and your customer.)

The interview can be found here.

Flipping Options to Change Behavior w Braden Cundiff

Changing behavior is difficult. It doesn't matter if you are talking about change at an organizational or a personal level. Getting people to do things differently is a tall order.

In this episode of the podcast, Braden Cundiff joins me to talk about his new whitepaper  Flip: Archetonics of Project to Products and his model for creating lasting behavioral change.

You can find the interview here: https://bit.ly/3xbeMrV

You Can't Blame Everything on Culture w/ Dhaval Panchal

 If your attempt to introduce organizational change (or agile transformation) isn't going the way you wanted, culture may be part of the problem, but chances are it isn't the only problem. There may be many other factors to consider.

In this podcast Dhaval Panchal and I explore the idea of culture as the thing keeping change from happening and what other factors might be sitting down to eat strategy and other things for breakfast. 

The podcast is here.

7 Rules for Positive, Productive Change w/ Esther Derby

Esther Derby is one of the most inspiring people I get to interview. She draws on four decades of experience in helping individual, teams and organizations figure our how to introduce positive change that helps create a better environment for people to live and work in.

This summer Esther released her new book 7 Rules for Positive, Productive Change: Micro Shifts, Macro Results. I had the chance to interview Esther about her new book, some of the most important lessons it offers as well as a number of other new projects she is working on.

You can find the interview here.

Motivational Interviewing w/ Zach Stone

Zach Stone is an agile coach with a background that includes organizational change management, conflict transformation, and behavioral science. He leverages these experiences in his work helping organizations, teams, and individuals adopt an agile approach to work. One of the primary techniques in Zach’s toolbox is Motivational Interviewing. In this episode of the podcast, Zach explains what motivational interviewing is, how it works, and why it is such a powerful approach to helping individuals move towards choices that can better help them achieve the outcomes they are looking for.

You can find the interview here:
https://www.projectmanagement.com/blog-post/55853/Motivational-Interviewing-w--Zach-Stone