The Agile Manifesto
Early 1990’s saw a number of software development projects being cancelled and those which were completed did not meet current needs of the business. The reason behind this was that the business needs were changing quickly and traditional software development was not a fast process and was rigid towards changes. There was a huge time gap between business needs and actual delivery of the software to market. With this frustration in mind, seventeen thought leaders met at The Lodge at Snowbird ski resort in Utah, in 2001 to find answers to challenges faced in traditional software development processes. They came up with four values which came to be known as “Agile Manifesto” to ensure the development of high-quality and working software quickly.
The 4 values of Agile Manifesto read:
Individuals and Interactions over Processes and Tools
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan
The Agile manifesto states while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more. Let’s look at each value in more detail and how a product owner can imbibe these values in his and scrum team’s work.
Individuals and Interactions over Processes and Tools
Tools and Processes are not capable of responding to changing business needs. It is people and their interactions with each other which will lead to a quick response to changes. If a software development is highly dependent on processes and tools, it takes much more time to accommodate new ideas or new requirements. That is why Agile puts a lot more emphasis on people and their ability to adapt to new ideas. Agile, as a set of values and principles, stresses the need of tools at various stages of software development and their importance is not undermined, but the tools and processes should act as enablers for the changes and not limit or inhibit people’s ability to change.
Recommended Further Reading
The following materials may assist you in order to get the most out of this course:
Course Contents
Section 1: Agile Project Management
Section 2: Using the Agile Manifesto to Deliver Change
Section 3: The 12 Agile Principles
Section 4: The Agile Fundamentals
Section 5: The Declaration of Interdependence
Section 6: Agile Development Frameworks
Section 7: Introduction to Scrum
Section 8: Scrum Projects
Section 9: Scrum Project Roles
Section 10: Meet the Scrum Team
Section 11: Building the Scrum Team
Section 12: Scrum in Projects, Programs & Portfolios
Section 13: How to Manage an Agile Project
Section 14: Leadership Styles
Section 15: The Agile Project Life-cycle
Section 16: Business Justification with Agile
Section 17: Calculating the Benefits With Agile
Section 18: Quality in Agile
Section 19: Acceptance Criteria and the Prioritised Product Backlog
Section 20: Quality Management in Scrum
Section 21: Change in Scrum
Section 22: Integrating Change in Scrum
Section 23: Managing Change in Scrum
Section 24: Risk in Scrum
Section 25: Risk Assessment Techniques
Section 26: Initiating an Agile Project
Section 27: Forming the Scrum Team
Section 28: Epics and Personas
Section 29: Creating the Prioritised Product Backlog
Section 30: Conduct Release Planning
Section 31: The Project Business Case
Section 32: Planning in Scrum
Section 33: Scrum Boards
Section 34: Sprint Planning
Section 35: User Stories
Section 36: User Stories and Tasks
Section 37: The Sprint Backlog
Section 38: Implementation of Scrum
Section 39: The Daily Scrum
Section 40: The Product Backlog
Section 41: Scrum Charts
Section 42: Review and Retrospective
Section 43: Scrum of Scrums
Section 44: Validating a Sprint
Section 45: Retrospective Sprint
Section 46: Releasing the Product
Section 47: Project Retrospective
Section 48: The Communication Plan
Section 49: Formal Business Sign-off
Section 50: Scaling Scrum
Section 51: Stakeholders
Section 52: Programs and Portfolios