Senior Partner in McKinsey’s Bay Area office, specializing in software product development, digital strategy, and AI-enabled organizational transformation. MIT Computer Science graduate and former Swedish Armed Forces Soldier of the Year, leading McKinsey’s research on how development practices must evolve beyond Agile for the AI era.
Research Leader in Post-Agile Development
Martin Harrysson leads McKinsey’s groundbreaking research on AI’s impact on software development, challenging organizations to fundamentally rethink Agile methodologies. His work spans a 120,000-developer study examining productivity gains, team restructuring, and the shift from story-driven to specification-driven development in AI-augmented environments.
Current Work
As Senior Partner at McKinsey, Martin leads research on AI-native development practices, focusing on high-tech, software, and financial services companies implementing digitally enabled business models and modernizing product development lifecycles. His recent work introduces the “Software X” paradigm, moving beyond traditional Agile frameworks to leverage AI capabilities.
Key publications: Unleashing Developer Productivity with Generative AI showing developers complete tasks up to 2x faster with AI tools, and How an AI-Enabled Software Product Development Life Cycle Will Fuel Innovation presenting frameworks for modernizing entire PDLC.
Background
Before McKinsey, Martin worked at IBM and Netcracker, bringing hands-on engineering experience to his consulting work. MIT Computer Science graduate with military background as Swedish Armed Forces Soldier of the Year, combining technical depth with leadership experience.
Philosophy on AI-Native Development
Martin’s approach emphasizes that successful AI transformation requires “getting a lot of little things right” rather than one large initiative. Cultural and human change takes time—organizations must start now, focusing on incremental improvements while fundamentally rethinking team structures, roles, and processes.
Shift from 10x engineers to 10x teams - AI augmentation transforms entire team capabilities, not just individual productivity.
Specification-driven development - Long-form PRDs become primary input with AI handling implementation, fundamentally changing the developer’s role.
Agent-manager leadership - New competencies required for coordinating AI agents with shorter sprints, smaller teams, and more numerous units.
Entire PDLC needs rewriting - Incremental improvement isn’t enough; the full product development lifecycle requires reimagining for AI capabilities.
McKinsey & Company
McKinsey is a global management consulting firm serving leading businesses, governments, and institutions. Martin leads technology transformation work in the Bay Area office, focusing on software product development and digital strategy for technology companies navigating the AI transition.
Conference Appearance
Event: AI Engineering Code Summit 2025 Date: November 20, 2025 Time: 11:20 AM Session: Moving away from Agile: What’s Next?
Co-presented with Natasha Maniar, challenging conventional Agile wisdom and introducing frameworks for AI-native development. The session explored how specification-driven development, agent management, and organizational restructuring create the foundation for leveraging AI in software teams.