In February 2001, a group of seventeen software developers met at Snowbird, Utah to discuss the issues they were facing in their work. They came up with the Agile Manifesto, which set out four key principles for agile software development.
Since then, agile has become one of the most popular approaches to software development, helping teams to work more efficiently and effectively. In this article, we’ll take a look at what the Agile Manifesto is, and how it can help your team to get work done more efficiently.
The Agile Manifesto was created in response to the problems that many software developers were facing at the time. The traditional approach to software development, known as waterfall, was often seen as inflexible and slow. Developers were often forced to work on large projects that took months or even years to complete. This made it difficult to respond to changes or feedback from users.
The Agile Manifesto sets out four key principles that should be followed in order to create more agile software development:
- Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
- Working software over comprehensive documentation
- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
- Responding to change over following a plan
These principles are designed to help teams work more efficiently by putting people first. By focusing on individuals and interactions, teams can communicate more effectively and make better decisions. Working software is also seen as more important than comprehensive documentation. This is because it’s more important to have a working product that users can use, rather than a perfect document that no one will ever read.
Customer collaboration is another key principle of agile. This means involving customers in the development process so that they can provide feedback and help shape the product. Contract negotiation is less important than customer collaboration because the aim is to build a product that meets the needs of the customer, not just one that adheres to a contract.
Finally, responding to change is seen as more important than following a plan. This is because plans can often become outdated quickly, but if teams are able to adapt and respond to changes then they can continue building a product that meets customer needs.
The Agile Manifesto has helped many teams to work more efficiently by focusing on people and working software. If you’re looking for a way to improve your team’s productivity, then consider adopting some of the principles of agile development.