Agile Manifesto: What has happened in the last 20 years? (Part 2)

„If the project is in question; Agile is the answer.“, James Grenning, co-author of Agile Manifesto

We definitely agreed that time flies when you did something crucial for the entire business community. Like we said in the previous article, the Agile Manifesto was written in 2001, almost 20 years ago. Amazing 17 people from various software development methodologies made something revolutionary that changed the business climate in each working area.

It’s always interesting and satisfying when you have a chance to talk (for now virtually) with the most prestigious names in the business. This time, Agile Senseis gave us a valuable opportunity to ask what has really changed in Agile world in the last 20 years?

Chit-chats with some great Agilists…

We must admit – it was reaaaally tough to merge all the fantastic answers from these marvelous 17 professionals. We’ve been lucky because they were very kind and provide us their views about the Agile Manifesto. Here are some thoughts from them:

Question #1: 20 years have passed since the creation of the Agile Manifesto and you were a co-author. What motivated you to join the others in the first place?

Dr. Alistair Cockburn was pretty inspired and told us that together with his colleagues were fighting a particular battle back in the late 1990s, literally trying to get permission to talk with customers and users and to deliver partial systems for early use and evaluation and feedback. The Manifesto reflects that battle. So, the methods from the 1990s wouldn’t be acceptable today even without the Manifesto. This is quite intuitive, right?

On the other side, Arie van Bennekum, an Agile thought leader and strategist said what really motivates him to join the others in the creation of this monumental event: „I want it to change the world, sharing the new (and so far unexplored) knowledge, making sure that people won’t bump into the same wall as I do and helping to overcome their problems. You’re an architect in your life, you decide what you do.’’ And he told more amazing tips to all current and future Professionals right here. 😊

Question #2: Tell us your opinion – what has changed in Agile movement comparing 20 years ago and today?

Arie van Bennekum said: „So many things. At the first place – technology. Disruptions of business models. Agile community has grown massively and in terms of awareness, everything is changed. Both from the individual and company side, everything is now different.“ Well, more genious thoughts on this topic you can check in this video. 😊

„What would I advise people who’ve just started with Agile? Well, the key thing is: you might start with processes that are repeatable. Agile is personal journey and state of mind, like yoga for example. It’s important to understand that this is tough, but exciting travel.“, Jon Kern, co-author of Agile Manifesto

Question #3: Could you name the most common difficulties that companies face in their Agile transformation?

Decentralizing decisions making and letting early, partial solutions go into the hands of the users were the most common difficulties that companies face in their Agile transformation according to Alistair Cockburn. For him, those are still challenges. But for Arie van Bennekum, the difficulties weren’t the same: „It depends on people. In the first place, a real Agilist listens to understand. A real Agilist is never judging. It’s up to you what you wanna learn and adopt. There’s one main question in order to develop a great team.“ Actually, we were amazed by his detailed answer here. 😊

Question #4: What would you advise people who’ve just started with Agile methodology, having in mind the initial idea behind Agile?

Alistar Cockburn said one crucial thing: „Collaborate! It‘s mostly attitude. Then, deliver partial solutions early, to learn. Pause and reflect on what is happening, what you would like to happen. Improve, baby steps – baby improvements.“ Did you try to accomplish something with these incremental, but tiny baby steps?

Also, you can’t miss Arie’s fantastic tips for people who’ve just started with Agile methodology. What connects the team, results and business? Check here. 😊

Besides them, Jon Kern, also one of the co-creator of Agile Manifesto gave us absolutely honest advice about these topics. Exclusively for all Agile Serbia bookworms and Agile lovers we present you answers to the previous first, second, third and fourth questions. Did you find something inspirational?

Let’s not forget how Kent Beck gave his contribution on extreme programming; how Mike Beedle valuated business Agility; how Ward Cunningham devoted his career to improve the effectiveness of technical experts; how Martin Fowler built software effectively; how James Grenning invented an amazing Planning Poker; how Jim Highsmith improved software and Agile community; how Andrew Hunt created some amazing Agile practices; how Ron Jeffries founded extreme programming; how Brian Marick concentrated on testing in Agile projects; how Uncle Bob or Robert C. Martin developed many software design principles; how Steve Mellor created executable UML; how Ken Schwaber together with Jeff Sutherland co-developed the Scrum framework in the early 1990s and how Dave Thomas helped spread the world Agile mindset.

Together, they created something anthological and valuable to the whole business community – the Agile Manifesto.

One is sure: Agile changed our way of living and working and we hope that the next 20 years will be meaningful as well as the last 20 years.

Enjoy these videos and please share your thoughts in the comments section below and tell us how Agile changed your life?⚡️

Agile Manifesto: What has happened in the last 20 years?

„Agile is an attitude, not a technique with boundaries. An attitude has no boundaries, so we wouldn’t ask ‘can I use agile here’, but rather ‘how would I act in the agile way here?’ or ‘how agile can we be here’?“, Alistair Cockburn

Time flies when you did something anthological and special for one business mindset or methodology. 2020 was so… how do we say – challenging? It put us on a test when we’re talking about our vision of sharing a good education. Especially in agile.

Well, the Agile Manifesto was written in 2001, almost 20 years ago. It has 12 valuable Principles. Most of the Manifesto’s authors worked on various software development methodologies: eXtreme Programming, Scrum, DSDM, Crystal, Adaptive Software Development, Feature Driven Development, and with certain concepts like design-driven development, refactoring, pragmatic programming and modeling languages.

Imagine one ski resort in the USA and cold February 2001. Seventeen amazing guys met in order to ski, relax, talk, eat and prepare something big. Kent Beck, Mike Beedle, Arie van Bennekum, Dr. 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 and Dave Thomas are magnificent names in various world’s software development. They made something revolutionary that changed the business climate in each working area.

„We were fighting a particular battle back in the late 1990s, literally trying to get permission to talk with our customers and users and to deliver partial systems for early use and evaluation and feedback. The manifesto reflects that battle. We are not having that battle anymore, largely due to the digital transformation that happened and the fast pace of technology – the methods from the 1990s wouldn’t be acceptable today even without the manifesto.“, Dr. Alistair Cockburn (co-author of the Agile Manifesto)

But more important is – how Agile has changed in the past?

The context for an Agile Mindset has changed a lot. Really a lot. We can distinguish the development of Agile in the past, then how it really works in present after defining of Agile Manifesto and what are predictions for the future. You can see that changes are inevitable and those changes are recommended and in the spirit of Agile mindset.

Agile: The past

„Study the past if you would define the future.“, Confucius

When we talk about the late 1950s and the period before Manifesto, we can talk about Lean methodology. Oh, that lean – when an American expert W. Edwards Deming put his fingers and knowledge into Toyota in order to give this company a whole new approach. Lean Principles are also valuable for today’s business especially when we have trust in workers’ and customers’ perspectives.

Then we had big 90s. Software revolution was inevitable but still, we had a situation where most projects were at worst completely failing to deliver. In 1986 Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi introduced the term scrum in the context of product development in their article ”The New Product Development Game”. Later, Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber worked together to integrate their ideas into a single framework – Scrum. We can’t forget Scrum Principles and how they are helpful in each business area.

Finally, in the early 2000s, the history of Agile – and the future of development – changed forever. Actually – a Manifesto was born, where Agile comes into focus. Four values and 12 principles continue to guide the Agile approach sed by teams today.

But, how about now?

Agile: The present

„Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.“, Zadie Smith

This is a big truth: Agile goes mainstream. While Agile took off in the early 2000s, we saw the Agile Manifesto pick up new steam in the 2010s.

By this time, the history of Agile was a commonly told story among development teams, but between 2012 and 2015, serious life success metrics began to support that story. As a result of the ability to demonstrate success in Agile at that point, the benefits of adopting the Agile became undeniable. Today, we hear a lot about DevOps, or the idea of creating a continuous kink of delivery in which new software can go to market at any time and is always ready for production.

Also, very often we’re witnesses of interfering Agile and Scrum. Let’s be clear – it’s not the same. Agile is a complex mindset that is involved in every aspect of your business. Not only in procedures and policy. That’s why agile way of working and doing demands time and patience. Especially the time. According to Agile Serbia LinkedIn survey, half of the respondents said that they’re specific when we talk about using some Agile frameworks (especially Agile values and principles).

Agile: The future

„The future depends on what you do today.“, Mahatma Gandhi

Here’s the main question: Can the Agile Manifesto stand the test of time?

While no one knows the future, it’s safe to say that the history of Agile isn’t complete. But the next chapter in that history book might look a bit different than what we’ve seen so far.

This new year promises big changes, but according to some predictions this will happen:

Design and development teams will collaborate more at the initiation of a project;
Development resources from large enterprises will be more outsourced. In turn, this will initiate a rise of more start-up shops or smaller agencies or businesses;
In the coming years, Scrum will be applied to large-scale enterprise initiatives, not just design and development teams;
Feedbacks are now more important than ever and will reshape the way enterprises do business;
Human data and business data into the way we work and how we make decisions will be more imperative.

Are you familiar with this? We hope that you’re living these Principles in order to become a truly Sensei in each segment of your work. February 2021 will mark the 20^th anniversary of this special moment and we can’t forget how it made an impact on our way of working.

For example, almost three-quarters (71%) of organizations report is using Agile approaches sometimes, often, or always. Also, Agile projects are 28% more successful than traditional projects. (Sources: Project Management Institute and PwC)

As Dr. Alistair Cockburn mentioned once:

„Collaborate. It’s mostly attitude.
Deliver partial solutions early, to learn.
Pause, and reflect on what is happening, what you would like to happen.
Improve, baby steps, baby improvements.“, and we can surely relate to these words, right?