Issam Gharios, Founder
Sep 1, 2025
At Coach Sensai, we spend a lot of time helping teams untangle one of the biggest points of friction in software development: the difference between how we work and what we deliver.
Most teams collapse those concepts together, which creates misalignment and frustration. To cut through the noise, we use a simple but powerful model: the two Whats and the two Hows.
Agile: The First How
Agile is the how we work as a team. It’s about process, collaboration, feedback loops, and continuous improvement. Agile defines the rhythm of standups, retros, and planning sessions that keep a team moving forward.
Delivery: The First What
Delivery is what we produce. It’s the end result of all that Agile activity: features, products, outcomes for customers.
Agile without delivery is just a ceremony. Delivery without Agile often burns teams out or misses the mark. The two must go hand in hand.
Expanding the Lens: The Two Whats and Two Hows
To be truly effective, teams need to think in terms of two Whats and two Hows and how they interact.
What #1: The Ask (from Product Management)
The intent: customer needs, business priorities, and the “why” behind the work.How #1: Agile (the Team Process)
The working model: standups, sprints, retrospectives, continuous improvement.What #2: The Product (Delivered by the Team)
The actual output: what the team ships to customers. This may not perfectly match the original ask it’s shaped by discovery, trade-offs, and constraints — but it’s the tangible result of the team’s effort.How #2: The Technical Path
The architectural and engineering decisions: scalability, design trade-offs, quality, and sustainability.
Why It Matters
The two Whats create a natural tension:
Product management asks for one thing.
The team delivers something shaped by reality.
When the two Hows (Agile process + technical execution) are weak, those Whats drift apart leading to frustration, delays, or wasted effort.
When all four dimensions work in harmony, teams find balance:
The asks are clear.
The process supports adaptation.
The architecture sustains growth.
The product delivered aligns with the customer’s real needs.
How Coach Sensai Helps
Coach Sensai is designed to make these interactions visible:
It keeps Agile practices disciplined (the first How).
It ensures product asks and team delivery don’t drift too far apart (the two Whats).
It surfaces the impact of technical decisions on delivery (the second How).
By coaching teams across all four dimensions, Sensai helps organizations avoid the traps of misalignment and deliver outcomes that truly matter.
Final Thought
Great teams don’t just do Agile. They don’t just ship products. They thrive in the balance of two Whats and two Hows. That’s where effectiveness and success lives.