# Value First — Full Content

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## Value First — AI leadership & agentic software development
URL: https://value-first.be/en/
Summary: Keynotes, hands-on workshops and pre-conference trainings on AI leadership and agentic software development.

AI adoption is organiza­tional redesign.
AI changes who does the work, who reviews it, and who is accountable. Most organizations have redesigned none of the three. I help leaders and product development teams do exactly that.
Keynotes, hands-on workshops & pre-conference trainings on AI leadership and agentic software development — in English and Dutch, for conferences worldwide.
Book a keynote or workshop →See all sessions →
I build AI agent systems, and I've spent twenty years in software delivery and organizational redesign. Most people in AI do one or the other.
AI leadership is the main topic, and it's broader than implementation or adoption advice. It's sessions and programs that make leaders AI-capable themselves: understanding it, applying it in their own organization, and passing it on. Governance, collaboration models, organizational redesign.
Agentic software development is the second topic: sessions and training for product development teams and their CIOs on agentic engineering. Agents in the delivery workflow, structured methods like BMAD, quality gates. What it changes about roles and responsibilities, processes and product.
See the concepts behind these sessions →
I don't do pure slide talks. Every session I run has a story, and an element that puts you to work: a live survey, an interactive exercise, a hands-on demo, or a full workshop format. I've facilitated this way for ten years, grounded in Liberating Structures and Training from the Back of the Room. If you want a talking head, book someone else.
“The students kept referring to the points he made weeks after the session — which is very rare in academia.”
University instructor, Prague (guest lecture Agile Project Management, 2021)
Agile2025 Denver · Dutch AI Conference Amsterdam · AI Summit Brussels · XP Days Benelux · Global Scrum Gathering Munich · Regional Scrum Gatherings
AI transformation has no endpoint. The organizations that succeed are the ones that work adaptively: short cycles, experiments, feedback, adjustment, until that way of working simply becomes how the organization runs.
Give it a few years, and nobody will say “AI-native organization” anymore, the same way nobody says “digital-native” today. It will just be how things work. Looking back, this transition period will look obvious. It's also what I've spent twenty years helping organizations build.
Nobody is the expert here — the field is too new and moves too fast. What I bring isn't final answers: twenty years of navigating complexity, everything I learn from building myself, and the willingness to share what doesn't work yet.
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## Privacy Policy — Value First
URL: https://value-first.be/en/privacy/
Summary: How Value First processes personal data submitted through this site.

Privacy policy
Last updated: 17 July 2026.
This page explains what happens to your personal data when you use this website, in line with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Who is responsible for your data
Value First, based in Belgium, is the data controller for value-first.be. You can reach out about any privacy question through the contact form on the Speaker Kit page — that form is also the channel for privacy requests, since no email address is published on this site.
What data this site collects
Contact form. When you submit the contact form, you provide your name, email address, an optional phone number, and your message. This data is sent to Formspree, a form-processing service based in the United States, which delivers it to Frederik. Formspree acts as a data processor; see Formspree's own privacy policy for how it handles data in transit and storage.
No advertising or analytics of our own. Frederik does not add any analytics, advertising, or tracking scripts to this site, and sets no cookies of his own.
Hosting. The site is served by Cloudflare. Like any web host, Cloudflare's infrastructure processes technical data (such as your IP address) to deliver pages and protect the site against abuse — this includes automated bot-detection scripts that run as part of Cloudflare's security service, outside Frederik's control. See Cloudflare's privacy policy for details.
Why this data is processed
The contact form data is processed to respond to your speaking enquiry — the legal basis is legitimate interest (responding to a request you initiated) and, where you provide it, your consent to be contacted back.
How long data is kept
Contact form submissions are kept only as long as needed to handle your enquiry and any resulting correspondence, and are deleted afterward unless a legal obligation requires longer retention.
Your rights
Under the GDPR, you have the right to access, correct, or delete your personal data, to object to or restrict its processing, and to data portability. To exercise any of these rights, use the contact form. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Belgian Data Protection Authority (Gegevensbeschermingsautoriteit / Autorité de protection des données).
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## Speaker Kit — Value First
URL: https://value-first.be/en/speaker-kit/
Summary: Bios, track record, testimonials, AV requirements, and booking details for conference organizers.

Speaker Kit
Short bio
Value First, based in Belgium, delivers keynotes and workshop facilitation on AI leadership and agentic software development — the same redesign, seen from the top and from the inside. The practice builds agent systems in-house and draws on twenty years split between hands-on software delivery and organizational redesign, across banking, telecom, government, media, healthcare, insurance, and automotive. Add ten years of European and US conference stages, and the highest international training and coaching credentials: Certified Scrum Trainer (CST) and Certified Enterprise Coach (CEC).
Long bio
Value First builds AI agent systems, backed by twenty years in software delivery and organizational redesign. Most people in AI do one or the other.
That combination defines these sessions today, on two connected fronts. For executives and CIOs: keynotes and leadership programs on AI leadership, because AI changes who does the work, who reviews it, and who is accountable, and most organizations have redesigned none of the three.
For product development teams: hands-on talks and training in agentic software development — agents in the delivery workflow, structured methods like BMAD, quality gates, and what it all changes about roles and responsibilities, processes and product. Value First also develops AI leadership curricula at university and corporate level.
The foundation is twenty years, in two halves, and now a return. The first ten: hands-on, in the roles of business analyst, developer, UX/UI designer, project manager, and product owner in software product development. The next ten: redesigning how teams and organizations work. Coaching teams, coaches, and product leadership across banking, telecom, government, media, healthcare, insurance, and automotive, typically as a long-term embedded partner, and co-leading an agile transformation at a major bank. Today, building again: agentic software engineering and product development. Value First holds the highest international training and coaching credentials: Certified Scrum Trainer (CST) and Certified Enterprise Coach (CEC).
Ten years on European and US conference stages, from Agile Tour Brussels and Global Scrum Gathering Munich to Agile2025 Denver and the Dutch AI Conference. Never a pure slide talk: every session has a story and puts the room to work.
Value First doesn't claim to be the expert here. The field is too new, and moves too fast for anyone to be. What it brings isn't final answers: twenty years helping organizations navigate complexity, everything learned from building with these systems directly, and the willingness to say what still doesn't work.
MC introduction (30 sec)
This session builds AI agent systems, backed by twenty years in software delivery and organizational redesign, in banking, telecom, and government. The claim: AI changes who does the work, who reviews it, and who is accountable, and most organizations have redesigned none of the three. Fair warning: no pure slide talks here, so expect to work. Please welcome: Value First.
Track record
Conference speaker since 2015. Two decades in the field.
Agile2025 Denver · Dutch AI Conference Amsterdam · AI Summit Brussels · XP Days Benelux · Agile Tour Brussels · Agile Tour London · Global Scrum Gathering Munich · Regional Scrum Gathering Ghent · Regional Scrum Gathering Brussels · Scrum Day Europe · Agile Consortium Belgium · NCOI Dag van de Projectmanager Brussel
My topics evolved with the field: from Liberating Structures, agile coaching, Lean UX, and agile software delivery to what occupies leaders today: AI governance, human-AI collaboration, and the organizational redesign that generative AI demands.
Agile2025 Denver (PMI Agile Alliance): 1,000+ attendees, selected through the open call for proposals.
Featured: live interview with Anu Smalley for "The Agile Network" podcast, recorded at Agile2025 Denver. Topic: a self-designed canvas for structuring AI-adoption conversations in teams — values, team impact, and concrete exit criteria. Full episode viewable for members of The Agile Network.
What participants say
“He can easily interact at all levels, whether it's the CEO or a freshly started junior developer.”
Enterprise Agile Coach, banking sector (2021)
“A really inspiring trainer. He is able to challenge people at all levels and bring out the best in the team.”
Senior manager, international consultancy (2024)
“Great facilitator. Challenging mirror. Gets the public going.”
IT professional, banking sector (2022)
“Tangible format — participants made a direct connection between the canvas exercises and their own team's situation.”
Participant, Agile2025 Denver (AI Harmony workshop)
What co-trainers say
“He is patient, a great listener and facilitator. He tells stories and doesn't push his own point of view. The students gave him glowing remarks on his delivery.”
Internationally certified trainer, after co-training (US, 2022)
“I sat in the back of the class letting Frederik handle the entire class. I'm confident in Frederik's training capabilities to trust him running my classes.”
Certified trainer, after co-training (NL, 2023)
“An expert in using Liberating Structures.”
Trainer colleague, after co-training (2023)
Consulting record
Twenty years as a consultant, through nearly every seat in the product development chain. First the building roles: business analyst, developer, UX/UI, project manager. Then the roles that hold a team together: Scrum Master, product owner. Then the roles that look across teams: transformation coach, agile coach, AI coach. And now the circle closes: back to building. Agentic software engineering and product development, with everything the coaching years taught him about how teams and organizations actually work. He coaches the whole chain because he has worked in the whole chain, across telecom, banking, government, media, healthcare, insurance, and automotive — typically as a long-term embedded partner, not a drive-by advisor.
Recent leadership work:
He coached telecom leadership through a delivery-management role, using a leadership assessment built for AI-enabled hybrid teams: the Leadership Circle Profile, Immunity to Change, and Personal Agility. His premise: generative AI may be the first technology to touch process, product, and people at once, where agile coaching mostly changed process alone. That combination surfaced familiar pitfalls in unfamiliar territory, micromanagement chief among them, and distance from the value stream.
Two paths opened up. The leader moves closer to the value stream and takes on part of the product-development work themselves: design, complex problem-solving, not coding. Or the leader shifts fully to strategy and delegates further, since AI-enabled teams run more autonomously, with the role moving toward customer contact and feedback loops.
At a major bank, he coached a leadership team on how they worked together, using a leadership assessment, the Lencioni model, and individual personality profiles so each member understood how their style related to the others'. A multi-session engagement, not a one-off workshop.
Credentials
CST
Certified Scrum Trainer, Scrum Alliance. Awarded after peer review and live co-training evaluations; held by only a few hundred people worldwide.
CEC
Certified Enterprise Coach, Scrum Alliance. A peer-reviewed track record guiding organization-wide change.
LCP
Certified Practitioner, Leadership Circle Profile. An ICF-, SHRM-, and ATD-accredited 360° leadership assessment certification.
AV requirements (summary)
Format
Core AV needs
Keynote (45')
Projector + screen, wireless mic, countdown timer
Interactive talk / breakout (90')
Projector + screen, 1 flipchart, reliable Wi-Fi
Half-day / full-day workshop
Flipchart per table, projector + screen, wall space for flipchart sheets
Full room requirements per format →
Availability
Available for conferences worldwide. All sessions in English and Dutch.
Photos
Download hi-res →
Download hi-res →
Photo: Dennis Hens.Download hi-res →
Photo: Dennis Hens.Download hi-res →
Downloads
AI-Agile Alignment Canvas (PDF) → For a team: align AI use with your own agile principles and values, and set up safe-to-stop experiments.
Speaker one-pager (PDF) →
Get in touch
Your name
Your email
Your phone (optional)
Tell me about your event
Leave this field empty
By submitting this form, you agree that your data is processed to respond to your enquiry. See the privacy policy.
Send
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## Talks & Programs — Value First
URL: https://value-first.be/en/talks/
Summary: Keynotes, workshops, and pre-conference trainings on AI leadership and agentic software development.

Talks & Programs
Every session below moves a team one rung up: understand what AI shifts, apply it to your own workflows, and only then redesign the work itself.
The ladder
Level
The decision on that rung
1. Understand
What AI shifts about value and trust, and where that hits your organization.
2. Apply
Who decides, who reviews, who ships, settled per workflow.
3. Redesign
Which work you delegate, which work you redesign, and which work you protect.
Sessions
Seven sessions, two tracks. Talks fill your main program; workshops run pre-conference or in-house. Details below.
Session overview by format and audienceSession
Format
Audience
When the Metrics Go Up and the Team Goes Quiet
Keynote / talk · 45'
Leaders
AI Development Governance: The 3 Collaboration Models
Talk · 45'
Leaders & practitioners
Your Agent Architecture Is Your Org Chart
Keynote / talk · 45'
Leaders & practitioners
The Work That Remains
Interactive talk · 90' · also half-day workshop
Leaders
Leading When Agents Do the Work
Full-day workshop
Leadership teams
Agentic Development, Hands-On
Full-day workshop
Practitioners
Designing Agents for Your Value Stream
Full-day workshop
Cross-functional teams
Each talk carries one of the concepts below; each workshop puts one to work on your own material.
Talks & keynotes for the main program
Keynote / talk · 45' · For leaders
When the Metrics Go Up and the Team Goes Quiet
AI tools speed up delivery while quietly eroding candor, ownership, and trust. Those are the conditions teams actually run on. Three erosion patterns already visible in real teams, and the values check that catches them before they become irreversible.
Participants can:
Name the tension between AI-driven speed and team trust in your own context.
Apply a values check to a running AI initiative.
Formulate three concrete agreements that protect psychological safety around AI use.
Agile2025, Denver — PMI Agile Alliance (earlier version under the title "AI Harmony").
Talk · 45' · For leaders & practitioners
AI Development Governance: The 3 Collaboration Models
What AI changes about team collaboration, in three concrete models for software delivery: who decides, who reviews, who ships. Includes a live hands-on demo using the open-source BMAD method, with AI agents organized in agile roles. Leaders leave knowing which model fits which risk profile.
This session is about choosing the governance model. Its design counterpart is Your Agent Architecture Is Your Org Chart.
Participants can:
Distinguish the three models and map them to risk profiles.
Determine, for their own delivery process, who decides, who reviews, and who ships.
Explain what an agent-structured workflow (à la BMAD) changes about roles.
Dutch AI Conference, Amsterdam. Audience feedback: the hands-on demos and the concepts on how AI changes team collaboration were rated most valuable.
Keynote / talk · 45' · For leaders & practitioners
Your Agent Architecture Is Your Org Chart
Conway's Law applied to AI agents: your agent design will mirror your organizational design, whether you plan it or not. Patterns from Lean, Agile, and consent-based decision making.
This session is about designing the agent system. Its governance counterpart is The 3 Collaboration Models. They can be programmed together or separately.
Participants can:
Explain how organizational design seeps into agent design (Conway's Law).
Apply two design patterns from adaptive ways of working to an agent architecture.
Recognize the risks of agent structures that copy existing silos.
Interactive talk · 90' · For leaders
The Work That Remains
When AI does the building, what is left for the team? Participants build the Delegate / Redesign / Protect model themselves through structured exercises.
Participants can:
Apply the Delegate / Redesign / Protect distinction to their own workload.
Identify which team work deserves protection and why.
Formulate one redesign experiment for their team.
No preparation needed.
Also available as a half-day pre-conference workshop: the extended version, applied in depth to participants' own workload (max 24).
Two tracks: Leading When Agents Do the Work for leaders, Agentic Development, Hands-On and Designing Agents for Your Value Stream for practitioners. The last two work as a two-day track. The Work That Remains is also available as a half-day workshop. Every conference workshop is also the demo for an in-house program.
Workshops for pre-conference and in-house
Full-day workshop · max 20 · no laptops · For leadership teams
Leading When Agents Do the Work
One day through the full ladder: understand what AI changes about value and trust, apply the 3 Collaboration Models to your own organization, and make your first redesign decisions with Delegate / Redesign / Protect. For leadership teams and executives. This is decision work, not tool work. No laptops needed.
Participants can:
Assess one of their own AI initiatives on strategic fit, risk profile, and ownership.
Choose a collaboration model per workflow, matched to risk profile.
Leave with three explicit redesign decisions, each with an owner.
For leadership teams; come with one real AI initiative in mind.
Full-day workshop · max 20 · laptops required · For practitioners
Agentic Development, Hands-On
From first agent to governed workflow in one day, using the open-source BMAD method. Set up agents in agile roles, run a real story through the workflow, hit the failure modes, and add the quality gates that catch them. For developers, architects, and tech leads. Bring a laptop; leave with a running setup and your governance choices documented.
Participants can:
Configure an agent workflow with roles and hand-offs.
Identify where the workflow fails without human review, and place quality gates there.
Take home a working configuration plus a decision log.
Laptop with terminal access required; basic development experience assumed.
Full-day workshop · max 20 · no laptops · For cross-functional teams
Designing Agents for Your Value Stream
Cross-functional teams bring their own value stream as working material and leave with a concrete agent design template. Design workshop, no laptops. The hands-on coding counterpart is Agentic Development, Hands-On. Together they work as a two-day track.
Participants can:
Map their own value stream as the basis for agent design.
Deliver a completed agent design template for one concrete step.
Explicitly lock down governance choices (who checks what).
Come as a team if you can; bring knowledge of one real value stream.
All sessions are hands-on. My facilitation style uses Liberating Structures and Training from the Back of the Room.
For your program pageCopy-ready descriptions for conference and event program pages.
When the Metrics Go Up and the Team Goes Quiet
AI tools speed up delivery while quietly eroding candor, ownership, and trust — the conditions teams actually run on. Three erosion patterns already visible in real teams, and the values check that catches them before they become irreversible. Keynote or talk, 45 minutes. For leaders.
AI Development Governance: The 3 Collaboration Models
Three concrete models for human-AI collaboration in software delivery — who decides, who reviews, who ships. Includes a live hands-on demo using the open-source BMAD method. Leaders leave knowing which model fits which risk profile. Talk, 45 minutes. For leaders and practitioners.
Your Agent Architecture Is Your Org Chart
Conway's Law applied to AI agents: your agent design will mirror your organizational design, whether you plan it or not. Patterns from Lean, Agile, and consent-based decision making. Keynote or talk, 45 minutes. For leaders and practitioners.
The Work That Remains
When AI does the building, what is left for the team? Participants build the Delegate / Redesign / Protect model themselves through structured exercises. Interactive talk, 90 minutes. For leaders.
Leading When Agents Do the Work
AI changes who does the work, who reviews it, and who is accountable. In this full-day workshop, leadership teams apply three practical models to their own organization and leave with explicit redesign decisions. Decision work, not tool work — no laptops needed.
Agentic Development, Hands-On
Build a governed agent workflow in one day with the open-source BMAD method. Configure agents in agile roles, find the failure modes, place the quality gates. For developers, architects, and tech leads. Laptops required.
Designing Agents for Your Value Stream
Bring your own value stream as working material and leave with a completed agent design template, including who checks what. A design workshop, not a coding lab. For cross-functional teams.
The Work That Remains (extended)
When AI does the building, what is left for the team? Participants build the Delegate / Redesign / Protect model themselves through structured exercises, applied to their own workload. Half day, highly interactive.
Concepts
The concepts behind the sessions above, in more depth. Reference material you can use yourself, whether or not you book a session.
CONCEPT 01
§The 3 Collaboration Models
Most teams adopting AI tools are making one of three choices about who's in control, without realizing they're making a choice at all. At one end: AI-assisted development, where a human reviews and decides on every step. At the other: fully agent-driven workflows, where the system acts and a human reviews after the fact. Each model carries a different risk profile, a different definition of "done," and a different governance requirement.
Getting the model wrong is how most AI adoption fails — not because the tools don't work, but because nobody decided who's accountable for what.
Apply this when your team is choosing an AI collaboration model for a specific workflow, or has quietly inherited one. Map the task to a risk profile first, then pick the model, not the other way around.
CONCEPT 02
§Your Agent Architecture Is Your Org Chart
Conway's Law says systems mirror the communication structure of the organizations that build them. It was true for software architecture, and it's true for agent architecture: the way you split work between agents will mirror the way your organization already splits work between teams, whether you design it deliberately or not.
That's a problem when your organization has silos you don't want to repeat. An agent architecture copied straight from an org chart with hand-off delays and unclear ownership will reproduce exactly those delays and that unclear ownership, just faster.
Apply this when you're designing or inheriting a multi-agent system. Borrow patterns from Lean and consent-based decision making before you borrow your existing reporting lines, and check, deliberately, whether the agent boundaries you're drawing solve a real problem or just copy an old one.
CONCEPT 03
§Delegate / Redesign / Protect
When agents take over the building, the obvious question is what's left for the team. The wrong answer: "whatever's left over." Some work should be delegated outright: agents do it, humans check outcomes, not process. Some work needs redesigning: the task still needs a human, but the way it's done has to change now that agents handle the mechanical parts. And some work needs protecting: the parts of the job where the friction itself is the point. The debate in planning, the disagreement in a design review. Removing that friction removes what made the team good.
Apply this per task, not per role. Run it across a real backlog, task by task, and all three categories show up, usually in proportions that surprise the team doing the sorting.
Formats
Format
Duration
Max
Use
Keynote
45'
Unlimited
Main program
Interactive talk / breakout
90'
~60
Parallel session, with an exercise
Half-day workshop
3.5 h (incl. breaks)
24
Pre-conference or in-house
Full-day workshop
7 h (incl. breaks)
20
Pre-conference or in-house
Above 20 participants I work with a co-facilitator — quality over volume.
Room requirements
Format
Room setup
Materials
Other
Keynote (45')
Theater seating, stage, screen visible from every angle
Projector + screen, wireless handheld or lapel mic, countdown timer visible to the speaker, speaker screen to see slides and slide notes, reliable Wi-Fi
Live survey, the audience uses their own phones
Interactive talk / breakout (90')
Theater or cabaret seating, with room to turn into pairs or small groups
Projector + screen, 1 flipchart, markers, reliable Wi-Fi
A short paired exercise works without fixed tables
Half-day workshop (3.5 h, incl. breaks)
Cabaret seating: round or rectangular work tables, max 4-6 participants per table. No theater seating.
One flipchart per table (4-6), markers, sticky notes, projector + screen, wall space for flipchart sheets
Natural light and room to move between tables preferred; breaks are built into the 3.5 h
Full-day workshop (7 h, incl. breaks)
Same as half-day, plus extra wall space for cumulative exercises over the day
Same as half-day + extra flipchart sheets per session block
Catering breaks (lunch + 2× coffee): logistics with the organizer. A separate corner for break conversations is welcome
Booking bundles
A
Keynote
45' + Q&A or an exercise.
B
Keynote + pre-conference workshop
The most attractive package for organizers: ticket revenue, and your program gets the speaker twice.
C
Workshop standalone
Half day or full day.
D
Interactive talk
90' parallel session, with an exercise.
Fees on request. A fixed fee or revenue share on workshop tickets, depending on what works for your event.
The demo
Live demos use, among other things, the open-source BMAD method: AI agents in agile roles as PM, architect, developer, and Scrum Master. It makes the "Agent Architecture = Org Chart" thesis literally visible. The audience sees an agent team organized like an agile team.
In-house
The same keynotes, workshops, and training programs, delivered on location. Flagship: AI leadership development, a multi-day training track for leadership teams along the same ladder (Understand → Apply → Redesign). Leading When Agents Do the Work is the single-day conference version of this same track. Every workshop above is also available as an in-house program.
Availability
Available for conferences worldwide. All sessions in English and Dutch.
Frequently asked questions
How quickly do you respond?
Within two business days, with a proposal tailored to your event.
How far in advance should we book?
Most conferences book 3 to 6 months ahead.
What does it cost?
Commercial conferences pay a speaking fee. Community and non-profit events are considered case by case.
Can sessions run virtually?
Yes, for both keynotes and workshops. In person is preferred, but virtual works.
Can the format be shorter or longer?
Keynotes scale from 20 to 75 minutes; workshops run from half a day to multiple days.
Do leadership audiences need a technical background?
No. Leadership keynotes focus on governance and decision-making, not code.
Is this a product pitch?
No. No tool or vendor recommendation, no implementation work. Just mechanism, decision frameworks, and what AI concretely changes about roles and accountability.
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