An introduction to the Agile Manifesto

The Agile Manifesto is a very powerful foundation beneath the Agile way of thinking. Let's look at the manifesto.

You cannot say Scrum or Kanban without mentioning the Agile Manifesto. Back in the 1990s, there was a movement towards working with projects in a different way. In fact, not only one single way, but several. In 2001, seven Agile front runners met to discuss what were the fundamental principles of Agile development that they could all agree upon. They might not agree to how the principles should be used in practice, but they did agree on the principles. These four key principles were the result of that meeting. Individuals and interactions over processes and tools. Number 2, working software over comprehensive documentation. Then customer collaboration over contract negotiation, and responding to change over following a plan. But don't forget the last sentence. We should not forget to document, we must have a plan. We will have to use some tools. But having good relations and good communications with our customer can help with creating good solutions, even if you have the worst contract possible.

Besides the manifesto itself, 12 Agile principles were formulated. I'll not go through them all, but if we have a closer look at them, they fall into three main categories. Category number 1 is Quality. Here you see Principle 1, 3, 7, and 11. We are always looking at qualities from the client's perspective, and we are focusing on all aspects that may help us produce quality. The category number 2 will be Collaboration. Here you find Principle 4, 5, 6, and 12. If you're able to collaborate well with your customer, you can avoid all sorts of misunderstandings and you can avoid just throwing rocks at one another. Instead, if you have good collaboration, you will have a way of communicating yourselves out of difficulties. The third category would be Balance. We are balancing supply and demand, and if we take the simplest road, we'll have more time to focus on more value creation. We balance change requirements with our capacity, and in this category, you will find Principle number 2, 8, 9, and 10.