Project Management: Foundations to Practice · Agile, Scrum, and Hybrid Delivery
The Agile Manifesto
Seventeen developers at a ski resort produced a document that reshaped software delivery worldwide. This chapter covers what it actually says, and the frequently overlooked line that clarifies what it does not reject.
In February 2001, seventeen software developers, including Kent Beck, Martin Fowler, and Jeff Sutherland, met at The Lodge at Snowbird ski resort in Utah and produced the Manifesto for Agile Software Development, a concise statement of four values and twelve supporting principles [26]. The gathering brought together proponents of several previously separate lightweight development approaches, who found enough common ground to produce a single unifying statement rather than continuing to advocate for their individual, competing methodologies.
- The Agile Manifesto was produced in February 2001 at a Snowbird, Utah gathering of seventeen developers from previously separate methodologies.
- The four values each express a preference, not a rejection: individuals over process, working software over documentation, collaboration over negotiation, responding to change over following a plan.
- The manifesto explicitly states the right-side items still have value; Agile does not reject documentation or planning entirely.
- Twelve supporting principles translate the four values into more concrete, actionable guidance for teams.