I originally published this article directly on LinkedIn on April 2, 2018. It quickly began making its way around the world shortly afterwards. Needless to say, I was quite taken aback by both its popularity and the overwhelmingly positive response. It’s very humbling and I am very grateful.
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As an agile coach people are always asking me what this agile stuff is all about. Even people who think they know are often surprised by what is actually is. I wouldn’t even try to count the number of words that have been written about agile software development and agile product development. And I’m certainly not trying to add to that mountain today. So, without further ado, here is my take on the shortest version of the Agile Manifesto ever!

Agile Values

Prioritize:

1. People
2. Software
3. Collaboration
4. Responsiveness

Agile Principles

Teams must…

1. Satisfy the customer (via delivery of valuable software)
2. Maintain flexibility
3. Deliver software frequently
4. Have business people and technical people (developers) working together daily
5. Build products around people that want to do the work
6. Collocate team members
7. Show progress via working, tested software
8. Maintain a sustainable pace
9. Keep focus on quality
10. Only work on what needs to be done!
11. Self-organize around the work
12. Reflect and adjust

The Agile Manifesto offers us four values and twelve principles that we can use as guideposts when we are making decisions about software development. The more decisions we make that are in line with those values and principles, the more ‘agile’ our software development processes become.