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The Agile Manifesto and Twelve Principles

Agile is a philosophy of providing solutions that encompass and facilitate evolutionary change throughout the life cycle of a product/project. Many agile teams and organizations have been using Agile to deliver software faster, improve quality, and ultimately improve customer satisfaction. The Agile Manifesto can be accessed at www.agilemanifesto.org.

  1. Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
    People are considered the most important factor. Teams focus on individuals and interactions. This value promotes self-management and shared ownership of the project.
  2. Work products over comprehensive documentation
    This value focuses on delivering a working product / software. Documentation is necessary, but it is useless without a working product. Teams should not let the documentation process distract them from producing work products.
  3. Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
    It is normal for business requirements to change frequently, so it is unrealistic to put everything under the contract at the beginning. Both parties (team and customer) must be flexible in accepting product changes. The team should work closely with customers to achieve common vision and goals. Therefore, both parties need to build mutual trust and conduct flexible contracts.
  4. Responding to change over following the plan
    Requirements often change according to the needs of customers. Therefore, it is ineffective to make a specific plan from the beginning of the project. It is recommended to develop a high-level plan when starting the project. Next, there is more information: and product related knowledge acquired from time to time, improvement feature in the product backlog, and implementation of projects based on priorities. To do this, it is recommended that each team member participate in planning the product backlog.

Agile encourages teams to self-organize and collaborate with customers through face-to-face communication and feedback.

12 Principles behind the Agile Manifesto

The following are the 12 agile principles that support the Agile Manifesto set out on agilemanifesto.org:

We follow these principles:

  1. Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.
  2. Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer’s competitive advantage.”
  3. Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.
  4. Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.
  5. Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.
  6. The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.”
  7. Working software is the primary measure of progress.
  8. Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.
  9. Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.
  10. Simplicity–the art of maximizing the amount of work not done–is essential.
  11. The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.
  12. At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.”

Agile takes an approach that expects project requirements to change and shows how to deal with those requirements. This is based on 12 Agile principles above that guide how to ensure successful project delivery.