In 1993, the first Scrum team was independently measured at ten times the productivity of waterfall. In 2026, the same protocol is doing it again, this time with AI agents.
Hermes: Organizations as Swarming Agents is Dr. Jeff Sutherland's field report from the front line of agentic work. It explains why a single AI agent, however brilliant, tops out at one story every 10 to 15 minutes, while a six-agent Scrum team on a cheap-model chain closes 50 to 100 stories in the same window, at about a tenth of the cost.
Inside, you'll learn:
- Why Hermes won the orchestration race in 90 days, and why it works best as the manager, not the worker
- How OpenClaw Scrum teams swarm work to done under WIP limits and a server-enforced Definition of Done
- What happens when the agent "picks up the mouse" and drives software with no API at all
- How an AI-run IT department kept around 225 medical devices online unattended, and got better every night
- The math of three compoundings: Scrum's 10×, the swarm's 10×, and the cost chain's 10×
This isn't a forecast. It's architecture already running in production, written by the co-creator of Scrum for technical leaders, Scrum practitioners and founders who can see all the pieces but not yet the picture.
This book is growing, sprint by sprint. Like the teams it describes, it's built in increments. New chapters are added as the work in production moves forward. Buy it now and you'll receive every new chapter and update as it's published, at no extra cost.
The protocol is the same. The workers are different. The economics are now decisive.
