The principles behind the Agile Manifesto

If you have practiced Agile software development, at any level of expertise, you should have heard, seen, imbibed, discussed and debated the Agile Manifesto and its related principles. For those who are new to this, the manifesto and the principles make up the philosophy behind Agile software development.

Ideally, I would have liked every person practicing Agile software development to spend some good time in understanding the manifesto and its principles before going on learn any specific Agile method. Or, learn and apply a method quickly but use every possible opportunity on-the-job to understand the manifesto and principles more. However I have come across development teams and/or people who haven’t been able to do that, not at least to a degree they would have liked to. They have gone on to quickly learn the philosophy cursorily, train themselves in one Agile method – Scrum mostly, gone on to practice it in their projects, and left it at that. They have derived benefits no doubt but not the complete understanding. In other words they have understood the answer to “How do we do it?” but haven’t fully understood the answer to “Why do we do it so?”

In the next few posts I would like to use this blog as a platform for us to discuss the Manifesto and its principles. I will present posts on the principles as I have understood them and as they have helped me in my projects. Let us then discuss them, debate them, agree or disagree, or anything else we want so long as, at the end, we leave with a richer understanding of the philosophy behind Agile software development.

So, here we go…