I Applied a Small Business Book to an AI Codebase and Fixed a Sprint

My co-author Jesse White and I wrote a book called Run on Rhythm about building businesses that do not require burning yourself as fuel. It was written for small teams - five to fifty people - who are drowning in well-intended improvisations. I just applied its core principles to an AI software project. The results were immediate. The Problem Sprint 9 had 155 story points planned. Our measured velocity was 38. That is a 4x overcommitment. We had been doing this for eight consecutive sprints - planning by ambition, measuring nothing, and wondering why every sprint ended in a scramble.