What is the Agile Manifesto?

The Agile Manifesto was written just over 20 years ago as a way of describing a set of common themes that were emerging in software development at the time.

Back in the 1990s, software engineers were getting tired of inefficient, traditional ways of working and wanted something better. Across the tech industry, new and more efficient practices - many of which drew inspiration from lean manufacturing - started emerging and gained popularity.

In 2001, 17 of the creators of these new, more efficient ways of working got together to discuss the themes that were shared between their various practices. They agreed on a set of values and principles that aligned with these common themes, wrote them down and called it the Agile Manifesto.

Reading the Manifesto and the accompanying Twelve Principles of Agile Software can be a good way to learn about agility, but it can feel a bit abstract, especially if you aren’t a software developer.

If you haven’t already, be sure to read this section of the What is Agile post. Try doing your own line-by line interpretation of the manifesto to see how much you understand, what doesn’t make sense to you, and what parts of it conflict with the way you are currently working.