When programming languages appeared in the 1950s, software development struggled with many problems. This included catching up with hardware development, high costs, delayed schedules, and extensive debugging. These problems often resulted in systems not getting completed, or solutions not meeting customer needs. Software engineers adopted strict continuous processes to ensure work delivery, but it became apparent that they needed a more dynamic and collaborative approach. The Manifesto of Agile Software Development of 2001 created the agile approach used by so many businesses today.
Table of Contents
- What Is the Agile Manifesto?
- Agile Manifesto Values
- Agile Manifesto Principles
- Agile Today
What Is the Agile Manifesto?
To provide alternatives to the rigid Waterfall approach borrowed from the manufacturing and construction industries, several lightweight development methodologies emerged in the 1990s. Some of these are Extreme Programming (XP), Scrum, Crystal, Test-Driven Development (TDD), and Adaptive Software Development (ASD). Software experts believed they needed to streamline processes. However, companies and management insisted on excessive planning and documentation. This overshadowed the primary goal of helping customers.
Read more: Agile vs. Waterfall: Differences in Software Development Methodologies
In 2001, 17 experts from different software backgrounds met at The Lodge at Snowbird, a ski resort in Utah, to share their frustrations. They agreed to a list of values and principles they called the Agile Manifesto. This manifesto for agile software development identified important aspects of the development process. They chose to give some aspects more value than others. This hierarchy of values would guide future processes and define the culture of agile software development. The Agile Manifesto authors are:
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Agile Manifesto Values
The Agile Manifesto identified several resources, activities, and components of software development that developers need, encounter, or produce during the course of building software solutions. These are developers and clients, interactions between parties, development processes, software tools, a working end product, and project documentation. It also identified the importance of customers and developers working together. They also acknowledged that teams do not know everything at the beginning of a project, so they may have to make changes in spite of careful planning.
The authors of the manifesto believed that misplaced emphasis on some of these components over the others made many development teams unable to produce complete and working solutions for their customers. They wrote the Agile Manifesto values in sentences that compare a set of software development components over another. They emphasize the importance of interactions over process, working software over documentation, collaboration over negotiation, and responding to change over following a plan. All these factors are important and useful, but the items they value more will help satisfy customers better.
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Agile Manifesto Principles
To elaborate on the four values, the drafters added 12 Agile Manifesto principles to provide further guidance. These are more specific statements that tell agile practitioners what to prioritize and how to do it. When developing software, teams will always encounter issues and challenges where they need to make decisions. During these decision points, they can use the Agile Manifesto principles to guide them back to the proper course.
| 12 Agile Principles | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1. Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software. | 5. Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done. | 9. Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility. |
| 2. Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer’s competitive advantage. | 6. The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation. | 10. Simplicity — the art of maximizing the amount of work not done — is essential. |
| 3. Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale. | 7. Working software is the primary measure of progress. | 11. The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams. |
| 4. Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project. | 8. Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely. | 12. At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly. |
- Principle 1 gives teams a clear understanding of their main purpose and the way to achieve it. Delivering software that provides value now is more important than delivering a complete solution in the future.
- Principle 2 prepares teams to accept that everything is always changing. The sooner they can adapt to changing requirements, the better their product will deliver a valuable solution.
- Principle 3 advises teams to use an iterative method of delivery that can be quickly deployed and continually tested.
- Principle 4 inspires communication and collaboration; every team and client has unique viewpoints and valuable perspective. When working together, they address the needs of the customer more comprehensively.
- Principle 5 gives management advice on how to support the development team to build better solutions. People who understand their purpose should be given the chance to find a way to accomplish their goals and get better at what they do.
- Principle 6 warns against ambiguity and relying on written methods of communication, such as email and messages. Face-to-face conversations provide crucial context.
- Principle 7 sets priorities: if the customer does not have a working software, then nothing else matters. Other metrics can improve performance or efficiency, but working software is paramount.
- Principle 8 notes that the business of building solutions entails endurance and consistency. Teams, sponsors, and clients need to come to an understanding that a healthy pace will serve everyone’s best interest.
- Principle 9 suggests that teams should strive to give their best and improve continuously because management, colleagues, and clients trust them to do so.
- Principle 10 advises teams against wasting work on needless complexity.
- Principle 11 urges management to give teams the opportunity to organize their own processes and designs, and come up with their own solutions.
- Principle 12 instructs teams to regularly review their performance, identify areas for improvement, and incorporate these adjustments in the next opportunity. This helps teams gain mastery as well as adaptability.
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Agile Today
When the Agile Manifesto was written 20 years ago, the authors were trying to address software development problems. Agile’s success gained the attention of other industries outside of software and IT, including marketing, finance, and HR. Companies also started scaling agile from teams to departments, and even whole organizations. Some were successful but others were not.
It is clearer today that agile is not suited to all projects or industries. For instance, projects with sequential stages that can’t be completed in a non-linear fashion are better suited to Waterfall than agile. However, with its greater focus on people, a working solution, collaboration, and flexibility, the agile approach enables many types of teams to adopt a mindset that makes them more prepared for new challenges.
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FAQs
What is the Agile Manifesto? | Top Agile Principles & Values 2023? ›
They emphasize the importance of interactions over process, working software over documentation, collaboration over negotiation, and responding to change over following a plan. All these factors are important and useful, but the items they value more will help satisfy customers better.
What is Agile Manifesto principles? ›The four core values of Agile software development as stated in the Agile Manifesto are as follows: Individuals and interactions over processes and tools. Working software over comprehensive documentation. Customer collaboration over contract negotiation. Responding to change over following a project plan.
What is the difference between Agile Manifesto values and principles? ›Agile manifesto are the core values/ pillars and principles to me are the elaboration or more specifics or explanations of these core values translated in a project / business environment. The principles describe more the practical enablers to strive for the values.
What are the values of Agile Manifesto and their importance? ›Agile Values refers to the set of 4 values outlined by the Agile Alliance in The Agile Manifesto. This set of values encourages putting people before processes, getting software out the door fast, collaborating with customers, and adjusting plans as needed.
What are the values and principles SAFe in Agile Manifesto? ›The four Core Values of alignment, transparency, respect for people, and relentless improvement represent the foundational beliefs that are key to SAFe's effectiveness. These tenets help guide the behaviors and actions of everyone participating in a SAFe portfolio.
What are the 4 key values of agile? ›- Individuals and interactions over processes and tools. ...
- Working software over comprehensive documentation. ...
- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation. ...
- Responding to change over following a plan.
There are 12 agile principles outlined in The Agile Manifesto in addition to the 4 agile values. These 12 principles for agile software development help establish the tenets of the agile mindset.
What is Scrum vs Agile Manifesto? ›The key difference between Agile and Scrum is that Scrum is a highly successful methodology for delivering software to a customer, while Agile is a philosophy about how to deliver software to a customer.
What are the five Agile values? ›A team's success with scrum depends on five values: commitment, courage, focus, openness, and respect.
How is Agile Manifesto different from Scrum Guide? ›The key difference between Agile and Scrum is that Agile is a philosophy about how to successfully deliver software to a customer, while Scrum is a proven methodology for software development teams to follow.
Which of the Agile Manifesto is most important? ›
Simplicity — the art of maximizing the amount of work not done — is essential. The goal is to get just enough done to complete the requested project. Any additional documentation, steps, processes, or work that does not add value should be avoided or eliminated.
Which is the most valuable point according to Agile Manifesto? ›1. Individuals and interactions over processes and tools. This value of the Agile manifesto focuses on giving importance to communication with the clients.
Is scrum Lean or Agile? ›Scrum is an Agile framework mostly used for new product development and breaks down each project into 1–4 week sprints. The average Scrum project length is 11.6 weeks.
What is the Agile Manifesto and why was it written? ›The Agile Manifesto is a document that sets out the key values and principles behind the Agile philosophy and serves to help development teams work more efficiently and sustainably. Known officially as 'The Manifesto for Agile Software Development', the manifesto detailing 4 Values and 12 Principles.
Which of the following statements best describes the Agile Manifesto? ›Which of the following statements best reflects one of the values of the Agile Manifesto? Answer : Working software allows the customer to provide rapid feedback to the developer.
Do agile teams need to comply by agile values and principles? ›Answer: The statement "Agile teams need to comply by the agile values and principles water flexibility to choose appropriate value adding practices" is true.
How do you explain agile values? ›- Individuals and interactions over processes and tools.
- Working software over comprehensive documentation.
- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation.
- Responding to change over following a plan.
The three Cs stand for Card, Conversation and Confirmation and in this article, I'm going to discuss each of the elements, explaining why, and how to ensure you're doing it right. I'll also scatter in a few tips from my experiences with agile teams.
What do the 3 C's stand for in agile? ›In this talk we'll introduce DevOps and discuss the three C's of DevOps: Character, Collaboration, and Community.
Which is not a scrum role? ›There are only three roles in a Scrum Team: Scrum Master, Product Owner, and Development Team. No other role is allowed, and there is no exception to this rule.
What is a sprint in agile? ›
A sprint is a short, time-boxed period when a scrum team works to complete a set amount of work. Sprints are at the very heart of scrum and agile methodologies, and getting sprints right will help your agile team ship better software with fewer headaches.
What is the difference between scrum and Kanban? ›Summary: Kanban is a project management framework that relies on visual tasks to manage workflows, while scrum is a project management framework that helps teams structure and manage their work through a set of values, principles, and practices.
What is Agile waterfall and scrum? ›Waterfall works best for projects completed in a linear fashion and does not allow going back to a prior phase. Agile focuses on adaptive, simultaneous workflows. Agile methods break projects into smaller, iterative periods. Kanban is primarily concerned with process improvements.
What does scrum stand for? ›The term scrum is borrowed from rugby, meaning a formation of players. The paper's authors employed this sports' term, scrum, in order to emphasize teamwork, since close, daily collaboration of team members is a hallmark trait of the project management framework.
What is the difference between sprint and scrum and Agile? ›Scrum is broken down into shorter cycles which is called sprints and smaller deliverables to get client feedback for betterment. Agile involves members from various cross-functional teams working in cooperation, while a Scrum way of working, the project team has specific roles and job function to perform.
What are 5 A's in agile? ›- Vision. The Vision provides a top-level view of the ultimate objective for the business. ...
- Roadmap. The Roadmap is a collection of key deliverables for achieving the Vision. ...
- Release. ...
- Iteration. ...
- Day. ...
- Do the Right Work. ...
- Loosen a Constraint. ...
- Write Stories From the “Customer” Perspective.
The three pillars of Scrum: transparency, inspection and adaptation are the core principles and if you really embrace this particular agile way of working, they become key elements of your organizational culture.
Is Agile Manifesto a framework? ›The lightweight framework of the Agile Manifesto was designed to improve upon existing software development processes, which were more complex and contained a lot of documentation. The founders wanted to speed up these processes and create a more efficient working model for teams.
Does Scrum follow Agile Manifesto? ›Virtually every aspect of the Scrum framework can be traced back to the Agile Manifesto and its principles.
What is the difference between Scrum and waterfall? ›Difference between Scrum and Waterfall
The key difference between Waterfall vs. Scrum is that Scrum is a lightweight, Agile development framework, while Waterfall is a rigid structured process that divides the development lifecycle into discrete, isolated phases.
What does not match Agile Manifesto? ›
3. What does not match with the Agile Manifesto? By definition of agile principles and values, ignoring individuals does not match the manifesto. The assumption would be individuals over processes, rather than tools & processes over individuals and interactions”.
What is the first core value of the Agile Manifesto? ›The first value in the Agile Manifesto is “Individuals and interactions over processes and tools.” Valuing people more highly than processes or tools is easy to understand because it is the people who respond to business needs and drive the development process.
Who is responsible for quality of an agile team? ›Who is responsible for quality in an agile team? It is the entire agile team who owns quality in an agile project, especially the product owner.
What is story points in Agile Manifesto? ›Story points in Agile are measurement units that estimate the total effort necessary to fully implement requirements analysis items or any additional work in progress. Teams allocate story points based on the amount of action, the diversity of the activity, and the risks or uncertainties involved.
What is difference between Waterfall vs Agile? ›The main difference is that Waterfall is a linear system of working that requires the team to complete each project phase before moving on to the next one while Agile encourages the team to work simultaneously on different phases of the project.
Which comes first Scrum or Agile? ›Scrum precedes the Agile Manifesto by about 8 years but is considered part of agile due to its iterative and incremental approach to delivering customer value.
Is Kanban Lean or Agile? ›Kanban is a visual-based agile framework with a focus on optimizing the flow of work in a continuous delivery manner.
What is the goal of Agile? ›The goal of Agile is to produce shorter development cycles and more frequent product releases than traditional waterfall project management. This shorter time frame enables project teams to react to changes in the client's needs more effectively.
Can product owner and scrum master be the same person? ›No, it should be 2 different individuals. This would seem to naturally indicate 2 separate individuals for Scrum Master and Product Owner. They each have a different focus and scope.
Which statement of Agile Manifesto is true? ›Which statement is true about Agile? Agile requires a high degree of up-front planning. Once the requirements are agreed to, the team can complete work.
What is the highest priority of an agile team based on the Agile Manifesto? ›
The Key Values and Principles of the Agile Manifesto
Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.
Agile manifesto are the core values/ pillars and principles to me are the elaboration or more specifics or explanations of these core values translated in a project / business environment. The principles describe more the practical enablers to strive for the values.
Is Scrum based on agile principle and value? ›The Scrum Alliance defines Scrum as “…an [agile] framework within which people can address complex adaptive problems, while productively and creatively delivering products of the highest possible value.” Scrum consists of sets of values and principles, and that's what we're looking at today.
Why are agile values and principles important? ›The Agile Principles are important because they provide a guide for how software development should be approached. They emphasize collaboration, customer focus, and continuous improvement. These values are still relevant today and help to make sure that software development projects are successful.
When was the Agile Manifesto principles? ›The Agile Manifesto was published in February 2001 and is the work of 17 software development practitioners who observed the increasing need for an alternative to documentation-driven and heavyweight software development processes.
What are the principles of Agile Manifesto 3 and 7? ›Answer. In the Agile Manifesto Principles 3 and 7 recommend continuous software delivery in "weeks" as a measure of progress.
What are the 3 key elements of Agile methodology? ›Conclusion. Not much separates the 3 key factors of an Agile methodology from that of any other business initiative. Teamwork, communications, and metrics are what drive business projects forward. These project management foundations are used to successfully run agile teams and achieve business goals.
What are the five agile values? ›A team's success with scrum depends on five values: commitment, courage, focus, openness, and respect.
What is agile methodology in simple words? ›The Agile methodology is a project management approach that involves breaking the project into phases and emphasizes continuous collaboration and improvement. Teams follow a cycle of planning, executing, and evaluating.
What does the Agile Manifesto prioritize? ›Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software. Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer's competitive advantage.
Why was Agile Manifesto created? ›
The Manifesto itself was born out of a need to find a common ground among scrum, Extreme Programming, Crystal Clear, and other frameworks. “They were starting to see that there was something common that they were doing.
What is the difference between Agile and scrum? ›What is the difference between Scrum and Agile? Agile is a development methodology based on iterative and incremental approach. Scrum is an implementation of agile methodology in which incremental changes are delivered timely.
What are the 3 C's in an agile story? ›The 3 C's (Card, Conversation, Confirmation) of User Stories
Work together to come up with ideal solutions. The goal is to build a shared understanding.
This is where the 3 C's of User Story come in handy. These 3 C's are Cards, Conversation, and Confirmation. These are essential components for writing a good User Story. The Card, Conversation, and Confirmation model was introduced by Ron Jefferies in 2001 for Extreme Programming (XP) and is suitable even today.
What is 5 story points in agile? ›Story points are units of measure for expressing an estimate of the overall effort required to fully implement a product backlog item or any other piece of work. Teams assign story points relative to work complexity, the amount of work, and risk or uncertainty.
What is the most important agile value? ›An Agile focus should be on improving the product and advancing consistently. Simplicity — the art of maximizing the amount of work not done — is essential. The goal is to get just enough done to complete the requested project.