BOOK REVIEW
Book Title: Beyond Agile, Before AI: Build What’s Worth Amplifying
Author: Dhanesh Kumar
List Price: US$9.99 Kindle.
Format: Kindle eBook, 163 pages
Publication Date: July 2026
ASIN: B0H9BJVQGD.
Reviewer: Aina Aliieva
Review Date: August 2026
1. Introduction — Why This Book, Why Now
I came to Beyond Agile, Before AI from an unusual position for a reviewer. Dhanesh Kumar and I worked alongside each other as Agile coaches for several years, and I also contributed a foreword to this book. This means that many of the situations he describes were familiar to me before I encountered them on these pages. I have seen organizations with Agile roles, ceremonies, and operating models still struggle with slow decisions, unclear ownership, competing priorities, and layers of approval. I have also seen how differently the same organizations can operate when circumstances become urgent enough to push those structures aside.
That experience is why Kumar’s central argument resonates with me: “Organizations do not become effective because they become Agile. They become Agile because they become effective.” The distinction is important. Beyond Agile, Before AI is not another argument about which Agile practices work best or how organizations should implement them more faithfully. Kumar is interested in what has to exist underneath them: clarity, trust, psychological safety, leadership alignment, decision authority, and the ability of people to act when reality no longer matches the process. His own experience comes from more than a decade of working with transformations that often already had the frameworks in place but were still struggling with these more fundamental conditions.
The title captures the particular moment in which the book is written. We have enough experience with enterprise Agile to know that adopting a framework does not necessarily produce an agile organization. Now AI is entering many of those same organizations. It does not arrive on a blank page. It enters organizations that already have particular ways of making decisions, distributing authority, responding to bad news, and trusting ( or not trusting ) the people closest to the work. Kumar’s argument is that AI will amplify these existing conditions rather than compensate for them.
This is what makes Beyond Agile, Before AI more comprehensive than a book about either Agile or AI alone. As the argument develops, Agile gradually becomes less the subject of the book and more the evidence for it. The experience of the Agile era provides the lesson; AI raises the stakes for whether organizations have actually learned it.
2. From Frameworks to Organizational Conditions
One of the most useful choices Kumar makes is to start before the framework. Organizations often approach transformation by asking which methodology, operating model, or set of practices they should adopt. Kumar reverses the sequence. The first question is what is actually preventing people from doing their work, making decisions, and delivering value. Only then does it make sense to ask which framework or practice might address that problem. His three-question sequencing test makes this very concrete:
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How to cite this review: Aliieva, A. (2026). Beyond Agile, Before AI, book review, PM World Journal. Vol. XV, Issue IX, September. Available online at https://pmworldjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/pmwj168-Sep2026-Aliieva-Beyond-Agile-Before-AI-book-review.pdf
About the Author
Aina Aliieva
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Aina Aliieva (Alive) is an experienced Agile Coach and a Business Consultant with 20 years of experience in different industries, from hospitality and tourism to banking and engineering, a Founder & CEO at Bee Agile and a CEO & VP of Marketing at The PMO Strategy and Execution Hub.
Her work focuses on complex organizational environments where decision-making, execution, and alignment intersect. She operates at the intersection of AI, cybersecurity, decision-making, and organizational systems, advising senior leaders on how decisions are formed, shaped, and governed in complex environments.
Aina is a keynote speaker on Agile, Project Management, AI, cybersecurity, negotiation, and organizational decision-making. She was a guest instructor at NASA in 2022 and 2023, delivering sessions on conflict resolution, negotiation, and facilitation techniques.
She serves as a judge for the PMI PMO of the Year Awards and MBA case competitions, contributing to the evaluation of strategic, organizational, and execution excellence across diverse industries.
Her book, It Starts with YOU. 40 Letters to My Younger Self on How to Get Going in Your Career, reached #1 in the job-hunting category on Amazon and is featured in the Forbes Councils Executive Library. She also led The Evolution of the PMO: Rise of the Chief Project Officer, a global collaborative project that brought together 40 authors across six continents. In addition, she contributed to several professional publications, including Mastering Solution Delivery, Green PMO, and Agile Coaching and Transformation. She contributes to professional publications, including PM World Journal, and publishes ongoing research and field observations through her Substack, AI–EI Fieldnotes. She has delivered invited sessions for PMI chapters globally.
Aina was a Finalist in the Immigrant Entrepreneur of the Year category in 2021 by the Canadian SME National Business Award.
She is currently pursuing a private pilot license, volunteers at cultural and community events, including golf and Formula 1 events, and has traveled to more than 65 countries.
She can be contacted at https://www.linkedin.com/in/aina-alive/
To view published works by Aina, visit https://pmworldlibrary.net/authors/aina-aliieva/
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