The Agile Manifesto changed the way we think about software development by emphasizing flexibility, collaboration, and customer value over following strict processes. As a 15+ year developer, I’ve witnessed firsthand how the Agile Manifesto principles can turn projects around. You’ll learn how the Agile Manifesto’s values and principles can make your team more productive and your project more successful.
The Agile Manifesto: Core Values
The Agile Manifesto transformed software development by introducing four core values that significantly changed how teams think about projects. These values prioritize flexibility, adaptability, and collaboration above all else, even more so than following a strict process.
- Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
- Working software over comprehensive documentation
- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
- Responding to change over following a plan
“Individuals and interactions over processes and tools” emphasizes the role of people in software development. In essence, the value communicates that effective communication and teamwork are the most important factors in project success. While tools and processes are certainly effective, they should never overshadow the people aspect.
“Working software over comprehensive documentation” communicates the idea that you should primarily focus on producing a functioning product. This doesn’t mean documentation isn’t important, but the value suggests that your customers derive more value from a working product than a mountain of paperwork. Documentation should always exist to support the product, not the other way around.
“Customer collaboration over contract negotiation” communicates the idea that you should continue to involve the customer throughout the project, rather than relying only on the specifications outlined in the initial contract. This ensures that the final product still meets the customer’s updated needs and expectations.
“Responding to change over following a plan” communicates that software projects are highly unpredictable. Plans are great, but they shouldn’t be rigid. Agile teams are highly adaptable, constantly changing their approach to best fit the new information or challenge at hand. Being adaptable results in better projects and happier customers.
I’ve seen these principles in action throughout my career. For example, I worked on one project that initially had an extremely detailed plan in place. We quickly realized that the customer’s needs were changing. By adhering to the agile best practices, we slightly tweaked our approach and ended up delivering a product that definitively exceeded the customer’s expectations, despite the fact that nearly all of the requirements had changed).
Twelve Principles of Agile Software
The Agile Manifesto is supported by 12 principles, which are the key principles that make Agile work. These principles are designed to help teams apply Agile effectively to their projects.
- Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software
- Welcome changing requirements even late in development
- Deliver working software frequently
- Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project
- Build projects around motivated individuals
- The most efficient and effective method of conveying information is face to face conversation
- Working software is the primary measure of progress
- Agile processes promote sustainable development
- Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility
- Simplicity–the art of maximizing the amount of work not done–is essential
- The best architectures requirements and designs emerge from self organizing teams
- At regular intervals the team reflects on how to become more effective then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly
Agile is all about customer satisfaction. We achieve this through early and continuous delivery of valuable software. This principle ensures that customers see progress and can provide feedback as the development process unfolds.
We also embrace changing requirements. This is a central tenet of Agile, which helps us remain flexible and adjust to new market conditions and new customer needs so that the end product is always relevant and valuable.
Delivering working software frequently is also important. This ensures there’s tangible progress and allows for regular feedback to keep the project moving in the right direction. Based on my experience, if you’re not delivering a working feature every two to four weeks, you’re not doing Agile correctly. Moreover, frequent delivery of working software will make the project outcomes significantly better and make your customers significantly happier.
It’s crucial to bring business people and developers together. This daily interaction ensures that you’re building a project that aligns with the business’s goals along with what the business does best. It also ensures better decision making and better project outcomes.
Sustainable Development
Agile encourages sustainable development by enabling the team to maintain a constant pace indefinitely. This principle avoids burnout and optimizes for long-term productivity. Teams operate at a sustainable steady pace, rather than the roller coaster of working too much and then burnt out.
Historical Context and Creation of the Agile Manifesto
The Agile Manifesto arose because software developers in the 1990s were struggling with traditional software development methods, which involved long development cycles and the end product did not always meet customer needs. Therefore, they created more adaptable alternatives.
In February 2001, 17 software developers gathered in Snowbird, Utah, with the purpose of finding common ground among the various lightweight software development methodologies. This meeting resulted in the Agile Manifesto.
Key authors of the Agile Manifesto include:
- Kent Beck
- Mike Beedle
- Arie van Bennekum
- Alistair Cockburn
- Ward Cunningham
- Martin Fowler
- James Grenning
These individuals had a range of experiences and ideas, and together, they built the core principles of Agile software development.
The Agile Manifesto was also the result of a blend of several existing methodologies:
- Scrum
- Extreme Programming (XP)
- Crystal
- Feature-Driven Development (FDD)
The Agile Manifesto initially met with mixed reviews within the software industry. Some people adopted it immediately, while others were more hesitant. However, as it proved to be a more effective way of delivering successful projects, Agile gradually spread throughout the industry.
Agile Communication and Team Dynamics
In-person communication is one of the core principles of Agile methodologies because it enables fast problem solving, minimizes miscommunications, and fosters stronger team relationships. In my experience, projects with frequent in-person communication always deliver better results than those relying primarily on written communication.
Empowering and trusting motivated individuals is another key principle of Agile environments. When team members feel that they are trusted and empowered to make decisions, they will take ownership of their work. As a result, they will be more productive and innovative. I’ve seen how simply providing team members with more autonomy can significantly improve project quality.
Self-organizing teams are one of the primary principles of Agile. When teams essentially agree on how to complete their work, it allows the collective intelligence of the team to shine. Often, this results in a solution that is more efficient and effective than a solution dictated by a manager.
Teams that frequently pause and adjust improve because one of the key principles of Agile is inspecting and adapting. We frequently inspect what we’re doing and the results, and then we adapt to improve performance. This continual iteration allows teams to become more effective.
Agile Team Roles
Common agile teams have various roles that help ensure projects run effectively:
Scrum Master: Ensures the team adheres to Agile principles and removes roadblocks.
Product Owner: Represents the customer and manages the product backlog.
Development Team: Cross-functional team that delivers the product increments.
These roles collaborate to keep the project moving forward and provide value to the customer.
Agile Project Management Techniques
Iterative development and incremental delivery are core principles of Agile project management. This allows teams to receive frequent feedback and make adjustments. Teams also work in short iterations to deliver a functional piece of the product.
Timeboxing and sprint planning are key to managing work in Agile. A sprint is a timeboxed period of 1-4 weeks. At the beginning of each sprint, the team plans which work they can complete in that timeframe. This focused approach helps teams make progress and deliver results consistently.
Daily stand-ups are one of the most important Agile processes. During a daily stand-up, each team member spends 15 minutes syncing up with the team. Specifically, team members discuss what they worked on, what they plan to work on next, and any blockers. This process ensures that teams can identify and work through issues quickly.
Sprint planning reviews and retrospectives happen at the end of the sprint. A sprint review is a showcase of the work completed by the team. A sprint retrospective is a meeting to discuss process improvements. These two meetings help ensure that the team is always getting better and aligned with stakeholders.
Backlog refinement and prioritization are recurring activities in Agile. The product backlog is a constantly changing list of features and requirements. Teams continuously refine and reprioritize the backlog to ensure they are always working on the highest priority item.
Measuring Success in Agile Projects
Delivering software is the ultimate sign of progress in Agile projects. While traditional methodologies might consider progress to be completing documentation or a phase, Agile is more concerned with tangible outcomes. This keeps the project delivering value.
Customer satisfaction and feedback are the ultimate success metrics in Agile. Agile teams constantly solicit customer feedback and adjust their work. The result is that customers are invariably satisfied with the final product.
Velocity and burndown charts are Agile frameworks to measure team performance. Velocity measures how much a team gets done in a sprint. The burndown chart shows how much work is remaining over time. Both of these frameworks enable Agile teams to forecast and plan more accurately.
Agile insists on technical excellence and good design. Agile is all about writing excellent, maintainable code. This ensures the project doesn’t accumulate technical debt that will slow down future progress.
Consequently, the Agile principle is to maintain continuous attention to technical excellence. Agile teams refactor, conduct code reviews, and challenge themselves to include more automated testing. This ensures the codebase stays strong and adaptable.
Agile Beyond Software Development
Agile principles have been applied to more than just software development. Many non-software industries have adopted Agile methodologies to make their processes and results more efficient.
Marketing teams and content creators have adopted Agile and use sprints to plan and execute campaigns, making adjustments based on market feedback. As a result, marketing strategies are more responsive and effective.
Product development in other industries is another example of Agile principles being used outside of software. From manufacturing to consumer goods, companies apply an iterative process to improve products based on user feedback. The result is products that the market actually wants.
Project management is another industry where Agile has made significant inroads. Construction, healthcare, and education are a few examples of industries where Agile methodologies have made project management more flexible and increased stakeholder buy-in.
Using Agile outside of software does pose some challenges. Some industries may need to modify Agile methodologies due to regulatory constraints or physical limitations. However, the core principles of flexibility, collaboration, and customer focus are still relevant.
The Future of Agile and Evolving Practices
The current Agile trends are all about scale and adaptability. As larger organizations figure out how to apply Agile to multiple teams and departments, scaling agile has created new challenges and opportunities for the Agile community.
Scaling Agile in larger organizations has given rise to frameworks like SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework) and LeSS (Large Scale Scrum) designed to apply Agile principles across multiple teams and projects.
A trend is integrating Agile with DevOps and continuous delivery to release software faster and more reliably. This integration closes the gap between development and operations and creates a more continuous product delivery pipeline.
Agile communication tools have become increasingly important for remote or distributed teams. As remote work has become more popular, it has been difficult to apply traditional Agile frameworks that rely on in-person communication. Teams are finding new ways to apply Agile principles virtually.
The next Agile developments will likely focus on AI and data-driven decision making. As technology changes, the Agile process will evolve to incorporate new technology and insights. The guiding principles of Agile, adaptability and continuous improvement, will remain the same.
Final Thoughts
The Agile Manifesto changed the game for software development. At its core, the Agile Manifesto promotes values and principles of flexibility, collaboration, and customer value. These principles have transcended software and are now the foundation of many industries. As technology changes, Agile principles are also evolving. Thus, Agile is a timeless framework for managing complicated tasks and delivering value in today’s fast-paced environment.
I’ve witnessed Agile principles transform teams and entire organizations. It’s not just a rules-based system, but rather a mindset that allows people to optimize how they work. The future of Agile is promising as it continues to adapt and address new challenges.
