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.

Jim Highsmith Q&A, Lean Tech Manifesto, Agility through Lean Craftsmanship: Jim Highsmith, Fabrice Bernhard, and Sandrine Olivencia speaking at Hands-on Agile 2025 — Age-of-Product.com
Continue reading Jim Highsmith Q&A, Lean Tech Manifesto, Agility through Lean Craftsmanship — Hands-on Agile 2025

Should We Change Scrum?

TL; DR: Can We Or Should We Change Scrum?

Can we or should we change Scrum, or is it a sacrilege to tweak the ‘immutable’ framework to accommodate our teams’ and organizations’ needs?

Not so fast; don’t just dismiss augmenting Scrum as leaving the path, contributing to the numerous Scrumbut mutations, giving Scrum a bad name. However, in our rapidly evolving business landscape, sticking rigidly to traditional Scrum by the book could be a straightjacket stifling innovation, user focus, and adaptability.

From ensuring cultural compatibility to facing technical debt challenges and emerging technologies, discover ten compelling reasons why augmenting Scrum isn’t just okay—it’s necessary for modern teams.

Read on to discover when and how to adapt Scrum responsibly without diluting its essence.

Should We Change Scrum? Age-of-Product.com
Continue reading Should We Change Scrum?

SAFe® — Despised, Yet Successful?

TL; DR: SAFe® — Despised, Yet Successful?

Many in the Agile community consider the Scaled Agile Framework designed by Dean Leffingwell and Drew Jemilo as unagile, violating the Agile Manifesto and the Scrum Guide. “True agilists” would never employ SAFe® to help transition corporations to agility. SAFe® is an abomination of all essential principles of “agility.” They despise it.

Nevertheless, SAFe® has proven not only to be resilient but thriving. SAFe® has a growing market share in the corporate world and is now the agile framework of choice for many large organizations.

How come? Learn more about nine reasons for this development.

PS: I have no affiliation with SAFe® whatsoever and consider it harmful. Yet there are lessons to learn.

SAFe® — Despised, Yet Successful? — Age-of-Product.com
Continue reading SAFe® — Despised, Yet Successful?

How Elon Musk Would Run YOUR Business mit Joe Justice — Hands-on Agile EXTRA

TL; DR: How Elon Musk Would Run YOUR Business with Joe Justice

Joe Justice worked for Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk.

In this Hands-on Agile meetup, Joe shared DX, or Digital Transformation, the agile operating system for TeslaSpeed—a term coined by the EU Commission to talk about how fast Tesla moves and how fast they need to move now.

How Elon Musk Would Run YOUR Business mit Joe Justice — Hands-on Agile EXTRA — Age-of-Product.com

📺 Watch the video now: How Elon Musk Would Run YOUR Business mit Joe Justice — Hands-on Agile EXTRA.

Continue reading How Elon Musk Would Run YOUR Business mit Joe Justice — Hands-on Agile EXTRA

Agile Negotiations

TL; DR: Life Is a Negotiation; Why Would Scrum Be Different?

Life is a negotiation; why would Scrum be different, particularly given its egalitarian nature? As you may recall, no one on a Scrum team can tell anyone else what to do, how to do it, or when to do it. Instead, solving your customers’ problems in a complex environment requires communication skills, empathy, patience, diplomacy, and professionalism. So let’s have a look at some typical agile negotiation scenarios.

Agile Negotiations — Age-of-Product.com
Continue reading Agile Negotiations

Self-Management: The Top Ten Business Reasons to Trust Your Teams

TL; DR: Self-Management

Is self-management an essential building block on an organization’s path to business agility or a nice-to-have cultural twist to, for example, keep teams happy and attract new talent?

While many people, particularly at the management level, are skeptical about the concept, I am convinced that organizations need to descale and regroup around aligned, autonomous, self-managing teams in a complex environment. Ultimately, only the people closest to the customers’ problems can solve those within the given constraints while contributing to an organization’s sustainability.

Please continue reading and delve into the reasons that support self-management.

Self-Management: The Top Ten Business Reasons to Trust Your Teams — Age-of-Product.com
Continue reading Self-Management: The Top Ten Business Reasons to Trust Your Teams