The Agile Manifesto is a foundational document of the agile movement, published in February 2001 by 17 software experts in Snowbird, Utah. It defines a set of values and principles that emerged as an alternative to heavyweight, plan-driven approaches to software development. Instead of focusing on detailed processes and tools, the manifesto emphasizes people, collaboration, working outcomes, and adaptability.
Origin and Purpose
The manifesto arose out of dissatisfaction with traditional models such as the Waterfall approach, which often led to overload, delays, and poor customer satisfaction in complex projects. Its purpose was to promote lighter, adaptive methods and to create a shared foundation for frameworks such as Scrum, Extreme Programming (XP), or Crystal.
Core Elements
Four values:
- Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
- Working software over comprehensive documentation
- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
- Responding to change over following a plan
Twelve principles, highlighting, among others:
- Customer satisfaction through early and continuous delivery
- Welcoming changing requirements, even late in development
- Frequent delivery of working increments
- Close collaboration between business and developers
- Self-organization, sustainability, simplicity, and continuous reflection
Application and Best Practices
In software development: The manifesto continues to serve as a guiding reference for Scrum, XP, or Kanban. Teams translate its values into concrete practices such as Daily Stand-ups, Retrospectives, and Increment Reviews.
Beyond IT: Organizations increasingly apply its values to agile transformations in marketing, HR, and product development.
Best practices:
- Contextualize values and principles: Translate them into the organization’s culture rather than applying them blindly.
- Involve leadership: Agile leadership means creating enabling environments, not control structures.
- Live Inspect & Adapt: Regular reflection on how principles are applied matters more than mechanically following methods.
Practical Examples
IT projects: A financial services provider reduced release cycles from 12 to 4 months by systematically applying principles such as “deliver in short cycles” and “simplicity.”
Marketing organization: A consumer goods company adopted agile campaigns guided by the manifesto. Principles such as “self-organizing teams” and “focus on customer value” led to significantly shorter campaign cycles.
Enterprise transformations: In industries like automotive and medical technology, the manifesto serves as a “north star,” providing orientation across framework boundaries.
Criticism and Limitations
- Abstractness: The manifesto intentionally avoids prescribing practices, which can make it difficult for newcomers.
- IT-centric origin: Some principles were originally written for software development and require adaptation in other domains.
- Commercialization: The term “agile” is often reduced to tools, neglecting the manifesto’s emphasis on values and principles.
- Cultural barriers: Principles such as self-organization may clash with strongly hierarchical structures.
Integration and Combinations
The manifesto forms the foundation of many frameworks (Scrum, SAFe, LeSS, XP). In modern transformations, it is often combined with additional approaches:
- Living Transformation®: Builds explicitly on agile principles, translating them into Transformation Increments.
- Living Strategy: Applies openness, collaboration, and adaptability to strategic work.
- SAFe: Anchors agile values and operationalizes them across portfolio, program, and team levels.
CALADE Perspective
At CALADE, we regard the Agile Manifesto as a timeless point of orientation – still relevant decades after its publication. We apply it pragmatically, translating values and principles into practices that are tailored to the organization, domain, and maturity level. Particularly outside IT, the manifesto serves as a bridge between traditional structures and agile ways of working.
Related Terms
- Scrum
- Kanban
- SAFe
- Living Transformation®
- Change Fatigue
- Organizational Debt
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