Jim Highsmith Q&A, Lean Tech Manifesto, Agility through Lean Craftsmanship — Hands-on Agile 2025

TL; DR: Jim Highsmith, Fabrice Bernhard, and Sandrine Olivencia speaking at Hands-on Agile 2025

The fourth and last batch of videos of Hands-on Agile 2025 is in—and it’s a fitting finale. Jim Highsmith explores the future of Agility in an AI-driven world, challenging us to rethink productivity, leadership, and the meaning of adaptability. Sandrine Olivencia takes us back to Lean’s roots, calling for a return to craftsmanship and purpose in Agile practice. Fabrice Bernhard introduces the Lean Tech Manifesto, bridging Agile principles with the realities of large-scale organizations. Together, these sessions confront Agile’s growing pains and point toward a more courageous, contextual, and enduring form of Agility.

These industry veterans bring decades of enterprise transformation experience, providing actionable insights you can implement immediately. Watch the session recordings to transform how you approach agility.

📺 Watch the videos from the first batch: Change Questions, The Agile Way, Humans Robots Agents: Dr. Lynn Kelley, Peter Merel, and Jurgen Appelo speaking at Hands-on Agile 2025.

📺 Watch the videos from the second batch: Product Discovery Mistakes, Agile Leadership, Taylorism to Product Mindset — Hands-on Agile 2025.

📺 Watch the videos from the third batch: Instilling Agility, Common Strategy Mistakes, Disempowered Teams: Johanna Rothman, Roman Pichler, and Maarten Dalmijn speaking at Hands-on Agile 2025.

---

🗞 Shall I notify you about articles like this one? Awesome! You can sign up here for the ‘Food for Agile Thought’ newsletter and join 42,000-plus subscribers.

---

🎉 A Few Days Left — The AI-Enhanced Advanced Product Backlog Management Course Version 2 at $99

While many Product Owners spend sizable chunks of their time defending Product Backlog decisions, top-performing teams use systematic alignment processes to turn stakeholders into allies and backlogs into strategic assets.

This intensive course delivers the exact frameworks and AI-enhanced workflows that save successful Product Owners 5-10 hours weekly while improving stakeholder trust.

What’s Included:

• ✅ Self-paced video modules with practical exercises
• ✅ Launch week live Q&A sessions with Stefan
• ✅ Custom GPTs for Product Owner workflows
• ✅ Complete anti-patterns diagnostic toolkit
• ✅ Community access
• ✅ Lifetime access to all course updates and materials
• ✅ Certificate of completion.

👉 Please note: The course will only be available for sign-up until July 22, 2025!

🎓 Join the Launch of the AI-Enhanced Version 2 on July 15: Learn How to Master the Most Important Artifact for any Successful Agile Practitioner!

---

Hands-On Agile 2025: Jim Highsmith Q&A, Lean Tech Manifesto, Agility through Lean Craftsmanship

Jim Highsmith: Q & A

Summary

Jim Highsmith, Agile Manifesto co-author and pioneer of adaptive leadership, joins us for a timely, unscripted conversation on what agility truly means in 2025 and beyond.

In this rare and candid interview, Jim explores:

• Why AI isn’t just a tool, but a new context for agility
• The trap of chasing productivity over innovation—and how to avoid repeating Agile’s early mistakes
• Why capability will matter more than knowledge in the AI era
• The emerging role of the “choreographer” to manage systems-level complexity
• Whether Agile is declining—or simply evolving into something more powerful

He also addresses the elephant in the room: the PMI–Agile Alliance partnership and what it signals for the next phase of agility.

This conversation is essential viewing for anyone working at the edge of Agile, AI, and organizational transformation. If you care about what comes after frameworks, watch to the end—Jim reflects on the Agile Manifesto, why it still matters, and what we should do with it now.

Meet Jim Highsmith

Jim has penned numerous books on the subject and was honored with the International Stevens Award 2005. He is a prominent figure in the Agile community, co-authoring the Agile Manifesto and the Declaration of Interdependence for Project Leaders. Jim was pivotal in establishing The Agile Alliance and co-founding the Agile Leadership Network, serving as its inaugural president. He has offered his expertise to global IT organizations and software firms for nearly six decades.

Jim’s Latest Book

His recent book is titled Wild West to Agile: Adventures in Software Development Evolution and Revolution.

Connect with Jim Highsmith

Jim Highsmith’s Website

Jim Highsmith on Twitter

Jim Highsmith on LinkedIn

---

Fabrice Bernhard: The Lean Tech Manifesto

Summary

This new and refreshing approach brought by Agile led to its adoption beyond just the scope of a development team, spreading across entire companies, far beyond the initial context it was designed for by the manifesto’s original thinkers. And here lies the problem: the Agile Manifesto was designed for development teams, not for organizations with hundreds or even thousands of people.

As enthusiasts of Agile, Benoît and I went through phases of excitement and then frustration as we experienced these limitations firsthand while Theodo grew and our clients became larger. What gave us hope was seeing organizations on both sides of the Pacific, in Japan and California, achieve levels of growth and success almost unmatched while retaining the principles that made the Agile movement so compelling.

The “Lean Tech Manifesto” is the result of spending the past 15 years studying these giants and experimenting as we scaled our own business. It tries to build on the genius of the original 2001 document but adapt it to a much larger scale. I will share the connection we identified between Agile and Lean principles and also the tech innovations that we found the best tech organisations adopt to distribute work and maintain team autonomy.

Meet Fabrice Bernhard

Fabrice Bernhard is the co-author of The Lean Tech Manifesto and the Group CTO of Theodo, a leading technology consultancy he cofounded with Benoît Charles-Lavauzelle and scaled from 10 people in 2012 to 700 people in 2022. Based in Paris, London and Casablanca, Theodo uses Agile, DevOps, and Lean to build transformational tech products for clients all over the world, including global companies—such as VF Corporation, Raytheon Technologies, SMBC, Biogen, Colas, Tarkett, Dior, Safran, BNP Paribas, Allianz, and SG—and leading tech scale-ups—such as ContentSquare, ManoMano, and Qonto.

Fabrice is an expert in technology and large-scale transformations and has contributed to multiple startups scaling more sustainably with Lean thinking. He has been invited to share his experience at international conferences, including the Lean Summit, DevopsDays, and CraftConf. The Theodo story has been featured in multiple articles and in the book Learning to Scale at Theodo Group.

Fabrice is also the co-founder of the Paris DevOps meetup and an active YPO member. He studied at École Polytechnique and ETH Zürich and lives in London with his two sons.

Fabrice’s Book: The Lean Tech Manifesto.

Fabrice on LinkedIn.

---

Sandrine Olivencia: Restoring Agility through Lean Craftsmanship

Summary

Have you felt the spark of agile fading, lost in endless processes and frameworks? In a world where agility has become more about ticking boxes than driving real innovation, it’s easy to lose sight of why we started down this path. I know this feeling well: 15 years ago, I took the journey backward to the source of lean to understand where we missed the boat.

This talk is about reigniting that spark, the craftsmanship, and creativity that once fueled agile teams. We’ll take a deep dive into lean’s origins, showing how returning to these principles can break through the bureaucratic clutter and restore the agility of earlier days. You’ll discover how lean craftsmanship can revitalize your team’s passion for building great products, bringing back the energy, speed, and customer focus that Agile was meant to foster.

Meet Sandrine Olivencia

Sandrine Olivencia co-founded Taktique, a firm dedicated to providing training and coaching in lean product design and development tailored specifically for busy individuals. She is committed to imparting practical skills and knowledge in a manner that suits the demanding schedules of professionals. Trained in management and computer science, Sandrine Olivencia is an accomplished product engineer who now teaches in leading engineering and management schools.

Sandrine has also been an executive coach for 15 years. She specializes in applying lean thinking to help fast-paced startups and scale-ups grow rapidly yet respectfully and sustainably. Supported by her team of lean coaches, she also works with larger organizations in various industries. Her work involves training leadership teams, managers, and operational team leaders to use lean strategy and lean engineering tools and concepts tailored to their specific contexts. The aim in these complex environments is to effectively spread lean thinking across the organization to boost engagement, enhance collaboration, and increase operational efficiency.

Sandrine’s strong expertise lies in designing and developing impactful products in both the tech and service sectors, as well as in shaping learning organizations that support sustainable growth. With a 30-year career in the high-tech and digital industries, Sandrine has guided and mentored many CEOs and their teams, drawing on principles from her book “Build to Sell: The Lean Secret to Crafting Irresistible Products.”

She also co-authored “The Lean Sensei,” a book on working with and developing into a lean sensei that earned a Shingo Prize.

She discovered Agile in Silicon Valley in 2002 while working on a challenging project with a bioengineering firm. She was an active member of Agile France and organized several Agile conferences. Today, she is a member of the French Lean Institute and a faculty member at the US Lean Enterprise Institute.

When she is not teaching, writing, or learning, Sandrine enjoys painting, singing opera, and taking long walks in the forest.

Meet Sandrine Olivencia

Website.

Blog.

Book Site: BUILD TO SELL: The Lean Secret to Crafting Irresistible Products.

---

🖥 💯 🇬🇧 AI for Agile BootCamp Cohort #1 — September 15 to October 6

The job market’s shifting. Agile roles are under pressure. AI tools are everywhere. But here’s the truth: the Agile pros who learn how to work with AI, not against it, will be the ones leading the next wave of high-impact teams.

So, become the professional recruiters call first for “AI‑powered Agile.” Be among the first to master practical AI applications for Scrum Masters, Agile Coaches, Product Owners, Product Managers, and Project Managers.

Tickets also include lifetime access to the corresponding online course, once it is published. The class is in English. 🇬🇧

Learn more: 🖥 🇬🇧 AI for Agile BootCamp Cohort #2 — September 15 to October 6, 2025.

Customer Voice: “The AI for Agilists course is an absolute essential for anyone working in the field! If you want to keep up with the organizations and teams you support, this course will equip you with not only knowledge of how to leverage AI for your work as an Agilist but will also give you endless tips & tricks to get better results and outcomes. I thoroughly enjoyed the course content, structure, and activities. Working in teams to apply what we learned was the best part, as it led to great insights for how I could apply what I was learning. After the first day on the course, I already walked away with many things I could apply at work. I highly recommend this course to anyone looking to better understand AI in general, but more specifically, how to leverage AI for Agility.” (Lauren Tuffs, Change Leader | Business Agility.)

You find more testimonials on the event page.

---

📅 Scrum Training Classes, Workshops, and Events

Learn more about the Lean Tech Manifesto with our Scrum training classes, workshops, and events. You can secure your seat directly by following the corresponding link in the table below:

See all upcoming classes here.

You can book your seat for the training directly by following the corresponding links to the ticket shop. If the procurement process of your organization requires a different purchasing process, please contact Berlin Product People GmbH directly.

✋ Do Not Miss Out — Join the 20,000-plus Strong ‘Hands-on Agile’ Slack Community

I invite you to join the “Hands-on Agile” Slack Community and enjoy the benefits of a fast-growing, vibrant community of agile practitioners from around the world.

If you would like to join all you have to do now is provide your credentials via this Google form, and I will sign you up. By the way, it’s free.

Tags: Agile, Hands-on Agile Community, Video