The Agile Manifesto is a concise statement of the four core ideals and twelve guiding principles of agile software development. It was published in February 2001 by 17 software development professionals who saw a growing need for an alternative to cumbersome, documentation-driven software development techniques and created the Agile Manifesto.
They introduced 4 important agile values that describe and encourage the process of putting people before processes, getting software out the door fast, collaborating with customers, and adjusting plans as needed.
History of Agile Manifesto
- The Agile Manifesto, a short document based on 4 values and 12 principles for agile software development, was created due to the group’s conference.
- The conventional waterfall method of developing software, in which programmers gather all of the user demands and specifications before creating the software as a whole.
- The finished project is released at the very end of the project cycle when using these conventional approaches, which is why agile values are introduced in the development cycle.
- It’s crucial to remember that agile wasn’t created at that time. Its authors and many other software development professionals have been adopting many agile principles and concepts individually for a long time prior.
- The Agile Manifesto made the concepts that have been permeating the software development industry for the last ten or so years explicit.
4 Agile Values
Below are the 4 core agile values:
1. Individual and interaction over using process and tools: The success of the team is determined by the ability to communicate effectively and efficiently. Other things such as the tools and the processes used are of less importance.
- The contacts among team members enable them to work together and resolve any possible issues.
- Individually, communication is flexible and takes place as needed. Process-related communication is scheduled and necessitates particular content.
In the conventional method teams used to focus on having the best tools or methods for creating their product and spending less time on communication and collaboration. The main disadvantage of such a process is despite having the best tools and poor communication will most likely lead to delays in building products and there always will be a communication gap.
This can be observed in action in the real world in cross-functional teams made up of stakeholders from the product, engineering, design, quality assurance, data analytics, and even marketing who worked continuously on a customer problem as a single team.
2. Working software over comprehensive documentation: The conventional methods for software development required very extensive documentation before any actual code is written. Focusing more on documentation and not shipping code will lead to never getting feedback in the real world.
- The agile method suggests prioritizing shipping code regularly while gathering feedback from the customer and improving upon it in the future version of the product.
- It’s vital to remember that documentation in and of itself is not a negative thing (overdoing should not happen here).
This value emphasizes the significance of deploying the software above allowing documentation to be a bottleneck.
3. Customer collaboration over contract negotiations: The traditional methods focused on the product allowed contracts to control what was ultimately delivered, which created a lot of room for unrealistic expectations. Before any work begins, clients negotiate the requirements for the product using development methods like a waterfall, frequently in great detail. This meant that the customer was involved in the development process only at the beginning and end, not in the middle.
- The agile way of doing this is to incorporate a continuous client feedback loop into development cycles.
- Customer collaboration occurs regularly during the development process and starts early in the agile concept.
- By regularly communicating with customers and incorporating their comments into your development process, you lower risk and do away with guessing.
This culture of close communication with real consumers helps product people guarantee they’re providing them with effective, helpful solutions. Agile teams put the importance of research and discovery work ahead of execution to guarantee the creation of the best solution.
4. Responding to change over following a plan: There is nothing constant except change and static roadmaps lead to a lot of difficulty in adopting new changes and it will soon become outdated.
- Therefore the agile mindset is to go with a flexible roadmap that takes it into account, a software team should be able to pivot and change course as necessary.
- Agile teams can adapt to the changes that a dynamic plan may undergo from quarter to quarter or even from month to month.
Thus, the product roadmap is now a dynamic plan rather than a static blueprint. Product managers working in agile contexts will need to develop the ability to transparently convey their dynamic roadmaps to stakeholders while taking into account the potential for change as a result of fresh insights.
How Relevant is the Agile Manifesto Today?
All things considered, the Agile Manifesto has held up rather well. It still represents a set of principles that presents both business and technology professionals with a welcome challenge.
- The Agile Manifesto is not only still relevant, but it is also widely used in fields other than software development.
- Marketing teams, human resources, and many other groups have benefited greatly from the simple modification of a few references to “software” to produce worthwhile results more quickly.
There are no defined agile processes, procedures, or best practices described in the Agile Manifesto. And that was done on purpose. The authors did not intend to create a prescriptive technique or framework. They instead developed a philosophic approach to software development.
It is important to remember that these are just values and not some strict rules that need to be implemented as soon as possible. But implementing these values in an organization improves the overall development process and actually, benefits can be seen in the long run.