Ready, Test, Go. — The Podcast on Software Quality and Digital Experiences

AI has made it effortless to generate ideas, prototypes and code, but faster production doesn't guarantee better products. Unchecked speed comes with risks, including overwhelming teams and customers alike with unvalidated output. Product leadership advisor and author Jeff Gothelf joins the podcast to discuss how to shift to an evidence-driven learning approach.
About the guest: Jeff Gothelf helps organizations turn technical capability into customer value through better product decision-making, customer-centric metrics and evidence-driven ways of working. He is the co-author of Lean UX, now in its third edition, and Sense & Respond, published by Harvard Business Review Press. He also co-authored Who Does What By How Much?, a practical guide to customer-centric OKRs, and co-founded Sense & Respond Learning with Josh Seiden in 2024 to help leaders and teams adapt product management, development and goal-setting for an AI-shaped environment.
You can find more of Jeff's work at senseandrespond.co.
Hosted by David Carty
Produced by David Carty, Samsu Sallah and Joe Stella
Graphic design by Karley Searles
To contact the producers, please email us at podcasts@applause.com.

Technology teams are often measured by what they can ship: performance, reliability, efficiency, adoption and scale. But the systems they build also shape privacy, dignity, access, autonomy, care and trust, among other important values. Their work asks a pair of deceptively simple questions: Who is affected by a technology? And what values are implicated by the choices teams make?
Value sensitive design pioneers Batya Friedman and David Hendry join the podcast to discuss their framework for integrating these human values into products. Leaning on a few examples and even a demonstration, Friedman and Hendry explain why it's important to go beyond simple performance metrics and broadly support human flourishing in product design.
About the guests:
Batya Friedman and David G. Hendry are leading researchers in value sensitive design. Their work brings together theory, method and practice to help designers, engineers, researchers, policy makers and technology leaders account for human values throughout the design process. Through concepts such as stakeholder analysis, value scenarios, envisioning cards and multi-lifespan thinking, they have helped establish a practical framework for designing technologies that account for dignity, privacy, care, justice, access and other important human values.
They are coauthors of Value Sensitive Design: Shaping Technology with Moral Imagination, which just released its second edition. You can find it here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/798075/value-sensitive-design-second-edition-by-batya-friedman-and-david-g-hendry/
You can also find their envisioning cards here: https://vsdesign.org/toolkits/envisioningcards/
Hosted by David Carty
Produced by David Carty, Samsu Sallah and Joe Stella
Graphic design by Karley Searles
To contact the producers, please email us at podcasts@applause.com.

Many organizations make a critical mistake: they layer new AI tools on top of broken, legacy workflows. This creates inefficiencies at best — the opposite of what AI aims to solve — and "digitized chaos" at worst. This is uniquely true in digital healthcare. The challenge isn't so much the technology itself, but the lack of organizational alignment coupled with a failure to design systems around the human beings they are intended to serve.
In this episode, Dr. Nasim Afsar, healthcare executive, physician leader and author of Intelligent Health, joins us to reframe the conversation. Drawing on her experience at Oracle and UCLA Health among others, Nasim explains why successful AI adoption requires us to stop building for the silo and start building for the individual. She discusses the vital role of trust in algorithms, the dangers of echo chambers in design and how leaders can finally move beyond point solutions toward genuine, humane digital transformation.
About the guest: Dr. Nasim Afsar, MD, MBA, is a healthcare executive and physician leader. She is a leading voice in digital health strategy. Previously serving as Chief Health Officer at Oracle and in executive leadership at UCLA Health and UCI Health, she specializes in operations, quality and digital transformation. She is a dedicated physician-leader committed to improving the care delivery experience.
You can find Nasim’s latest book, Intelligent Health: The Movement to Unify Data, Harness AI, and Empower People to Thrive, here: https://www.wiley.com/en-hk/shop/general-introductory-biomedical-engineering/intelligent-health-the-movement-to-unify-data-harness-ai-and-empower-people-to-thrive-p-9781394408276
Hosted by David Carty
Produced by David Carty, Samsu Sallah and Joe Stella
Graphic design by Karley Searles
To contact the producers, please email us at podcasts@applause.com.

Many technology leaders view data quality as purely an IT issue, which leads to fragmentation and siloed efforts. The challenge lies the lack of organizational alignment and clear, human-centric data intelligence.
In this episode, Roberto Maranca, data excellence practitioner and author of Data Excellence: How Data Leadership Can Drive Stronger Organizational Performance joins us to reframe data governance as a team sport. Roberto explains why successful AI adoption requires "data athletes" and "data personal trainers" to work in concert. He discusses the importance of data consumer stories, the necessity of human judgment in AI and how leaders can rebuild trust by prioritizing clear data context.
About the guest: Roberto Maranca is an enterprise data leader and author. He has held senior and executive data leadership roles at organizations including Schneider Electric, Lloyds Banking Group and GE, with work spanning data governance, data quality, data risk, AI readiness and business transformation. Recognized multiple times as one of DataIQ’s Top 100 Data Leaders, Roberto frames data leadership as a performance discipline, which helps organizations build trust, accountability and value.
Hosted by David Carty
Produced by David Carty, Samsu Sallah and Joe Stella
Graphic design by Karley Searles
To contact the producers, please email us at podcasts@applause.com.

Testing teaches us to look for hidden assumptions and treat failure as valuable information. But when the standard for professional quality is high, the friction of everyday life can feel like a series of critical defects. Without the right framework, these "bugs" lead to emotional burnout and strained relationships rather than insight.
In this episode, Alison McGuigan, Director of Enterprise Quality Assurance, discusses how the testing mindset fundamentally changes how we approach complexity. From boundary testing personal relationships to refactoring daily habits and dead code, Alison explores how to apply technical rigor to personal growth — and vice versa. Learn why treating every defect as a source of insight can improve resilience and navigate the most complex human systems.
About the guest: Alison McGuigan is a Director of Enterprise Quality Assurance and author of the blog Testing in Production. She has over a decade of experience driving test optimization and automation strategy.
You can find Alison’s blog here: https://testinginprod.substack.com/
Hosted by David Carty
Produced by David Carty, Samsu Sallah and Joe Stella
Graphic design by Karley Searles
To contact the producers, please email us at podcasts@applause.com.