The values and principles of the Agile Manifesto

The Four Values of The Agile Manifesto

The Agile Manifesto is comprised of four foundational values and 12 supporting principles which lead the Agile approach to software development. Each Agile methodology applies the four values in different ways, but all of them rely on them to guide the development and delivery of high-quality, working software.

1. Individuals and Interactions Over Processes and Tools
The first value in the Agile Manifesto is “Individuals and interactions over processes and tools.” Valuing people more highly than processes or tools is easy to understand because it is the people who respond to business needs and drive the development process. If the process or the tools drive development, the team is less responsive to change and less likely to meet customer needs. Communication is an example of the difference between valuing individuals versus process. In the case of individuals, communication is fluid and happens when a need arises. In the case of process, communication is scheduled and requires specific content.

2. Working Software Over Comprehensive Documentation
Historically, enormous amounts of time were spent on documenting the product for development and ultimate delivery. Technical specifications, technical requirements, technical prospectus, interface design documents, test plans, documentation plans, and approvals required for each. The list was extensive and was a cause for the long delays in development. Agile does not eliminate documentation, but it streamlines it in a form that gives the developer what is needed to do the work without getting bogged down in minutiae. Agile documents requirements as user stories, which are sufficient for a software developer to begin the task of building a new function.
The Agile Manifesto values documentation, but it values working software more.

3. Customer Collaboration Over Contract Negotiation
Negotiation is the period when the customer and the product manager work out the details of a delivery, with points along the way where the details may be renegotiated. Collaboration is a different creature entirely. With development models such as Waterfall, customers negotiate the requirements for the product, often in great detail, prior to any work starting. This meant the customer was involved in the process of development before development began and after it was completed, but not during the process. The Agile Manifesto describes a customer who is engaged and collaborates throughout the development process, making. This makes it far easier for development to meet their needs of the customer. Agile methods may include the customer at intervals for periodic demos, but a project could just as easily have an end-user as a daily part of the team and attending all meetings, ensuring the product meets the business needs of the customer.

4. Responding to Change Over Following a Plan
Traditional software development regarded change as an expense, so it was to be avoided. The intention was to develop detailed, elaborate plans, with a defined set of features and with everything, generally, having as high a priority as everything else, and with a large number of many dependencies on delivering in a certain order so that the team can work on the next piece of the puzzle.

With Agile, the shortness of an iteration means priorities can be shifted from iteration to iteration and new features can be added into the next iteration. Agile’s view is that changes always improve a project; changes provide additional value.

Perhaps nothing illustrates Agile’s positive approach to change better than the concept of Method Tailoring, defined in An Agile Information Systems Development Method in use as: “A process or capability in which human agents determine a system development approach for a specific project situation through responsive changes in, and dynamic interplays between contexts, intentions, and method fragments.” Agile methodologies allow the Agile team to modify the process and make it fit the team rather than the other way around.

The Twelve Agile Manifesto Principles

The Twelve Principles are the guiding principles for the methodologies that are included under the title “The Agile Movement.” They describe a culture in which change is welcome, and the customer is the focus of the work. They also demonstrate the movement’s intent as described by Alistair Cockburn, one of the signatories to the Agile Manifesto, which is to bring development into alignment with business needs.

The twelve principles of agile development include:

  1. Customer satisfaction through early and continuous software delivery – Customers are happier when they receive working software at regular intervals, rather than waiting extended periods of time between releases.
  2. Accommodate changing requirements throughout the development process – The ability to avoid delays when a requirement or feature request changes.
  3. Frequent delivery of working software – Scrum accommodates this principle since the team operates in software sprints or iterations that ensure regular delivery of working software.
  4. Collaboration between the business stakeholders and developers throughout the project – Better decisions are made when the business and technical team are aligned.
  5. Support, trust, and motivate the people involved – Motivated teams are more likely to deliver their best work than unhappy teams.
  6. Enable face-to-face interactions – Communication is more successful when development teams are co-located.
  7. Working software is the primary measure of progress – Delivering functional software to the customer is the ultimate factor that measures progress.
  8. Agile processes to support a consistent development pace –Teams establish a repeatable and maintainable speed at which they can deliver working software, and they repeat it with each release.
  9. Attention to technical detail and design enhances agility – The right skills and good design ensures the team can maintain the pace, constantly improve the product, and sustain change.
  10. Simplicity – Develop just enough to get the job done for right now.
  11. Self-organizing teams encourage great architectures, requirements, and designs – Skilled and motivated team members who have decision-making power, take ownership, communicate regularly with other team members, and share ideas that deliver quality products.
  12. Regular reflections on how to become more effective – Self-improvement, process improvement, advancing skills, and techniques help team members work more efficiently.

The intention of Agile is to align development with business needs, and the success of Agile is apparent. Agile projects are customer focused and encourage customer guidance and participation. As a result, Agile has grown to be an overarching view of software development throughout the software industry and an industry all by itself.


Kent Beck
Mike Beedle
Arie van Bennekum
Alistair Cockburn
Ward Cunningham
Martin Fowler
James Grenning
Jim Highsmith
Andrew Hunt
Ron Jeffries
Jon Kern
Brian Marick
Robert C. Martin
Steve Mellor
Ken Schwaber
Jeff Sutherland
Dave Thomas

© 2001, the above authors

Agil systemutveckling

Att bedriva utveckling med agila metoder innebär att man arbetar iterativt och inkrementellt med många små och snabba delleveranser i regelbundet korta intervaller.
Arbetssättet är flexibelt och betonar snabb­­het, in­formellt sam­arbete, täta kund­kontakter och möjlig­het att ändra under arbetets gång. (Se agil.) Även krav­specifikationen bör kunna revideras under projektets gång eftersom behov, önskemål och förutsättningar kan förändras över tid.
Det är mer att betrakta som en rörelse, inte en en­­hetlig metod.
Manifestet för agil system­­utveckling (länk) publicerades 2001 av en grupp pro­grammerare som hade reagerat på strävan efter detaljerade kravspecifikationer, omfattande dokumentation och byråkratiserande metoder och processer som var resultatet av den traditionella projektmodellen ”vattenfallsmetoden”. De bildade Agile Alliance (länk), och har sedan dess utvecklat verk­tyg och andra hjälp­medel.
Scrum och Kanban är två vanliga agila metoder som hjälper projektteam att prioritera, synliggöra arbete och framsteg och minska flaskhalsar i produktionen.
Klicka här för en artikel om Kanban.

Klicka här för en artikel som beskriver grunderna i Scrum.

Klicka här för att läsa ett blogginlägg om vad det innebär att arbeta agilt.

Agila manifestet består av följande fyra grundläggande värden och 12 stödjande principer som leder den agila strategin för mjukvaruutveckling. Varje agil metodik tillämpar de fyra värdena på olika sätt, men alla litar på dem för att vägleda utvecklingen och leveransen av högkvalitativ, fungerande programvara.

Vi finner bättre sätt att utveckla programvara genom att utveckla själva och hjälpa andra att utveckla. Genom detta arbete har vi kommit att värdesätta:

1. Individer och interaktioner framför processer och verktyg.
2. Fungerande programvara framför omfattande dokumentation.
3. Kundsamarbete framför kontraktsförhandling.
4. Anpassning till förändring framför att följa en plan.

Det vill säga, medan det finns värde i punkterna till höger, värdesätter vi punkterna till vänster mer.

Principerna bakom det agila manifestet

Vi följer dessa 12 principer:

  1. Vår högsta prioritet är att tillfredsställa beställarens önskemål genom tidig och kontinuerlig leverans av värdefull programvara.
  2. Välkomna förändrade krav, även sent under utvecklingen. Agila metoder utnyttjar förändring till kundens konkurrensfördel.
  3. Leverera fungerande programvara ofta, med ett par veckors till ett par månaders mellanrum, ju oftare desto bättre.
  4. Verksamhetskunniga och utvecklare måste arbeta tillsammans dagligen under hela projektet.
  5. Bygg projekt kring motiverade individer. Ge dem den miljö och det stöd de behöver, och lita på att de får jobbet gjort.
  6. Kommunikation ansikte mot ansikte är det bästa och effektivaste sättet att förmedla information, både till och inom utvecklingsteamet.
  7. Fungerande programvara är främsta måttet på framsteg.
  8. Agila metoder verkar för uthållighet. Sponsorer, utvecklare och användare skall kunna hålla jämn utvecklingstakt under obegränsad tid.
  9. Kontinuerlig uppmärksamhet på förstklassig teknik och bra design stärker anpassningsförmågan.
  10. Enkelhet – konsten att maximera mängden arbete som inte görs – är grundläggande.
  11. Bäst arkitektur, krav och design växer fram med självorganiserande team.
  12. Med jämna mellanrum reflekterar teamet över hur det kan bli mer effektivt och justerar sitt beteende därefter.

Läs gärna mer om manifestet med tydliga förklaringar av varje princip i denna artikel på engelska.