I just finished an Agile PM course. Quite intensive really : 20hrs over a week. Covered a lot of ground, all of it relevant and useful. And I now have a certification which is nice.
One thing that came up the other day: If you could change one thing in the Agile Manifesto, what would it be?
I’ve been referring to the Agile Manifesto for years now. I like the fact it’s a statement of intent rather than an prescriptive set of rules. Compare this with XP, Scrum or (to a degree) Kanban, which all have more concrete implementation suggestions. This leaves the implementation of Agile open to interpretation by the individual and team. Which can be daunting but a good thing.
So it’s all open to interpretation all the time, by all stakeholders.
Anyhoo: that’s enough preamble!
So let’s repeat the manifesto in full here (it’s so short)
- Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
- Working software over comprehensive documentation
- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
- Responding to change over following a plan
Wow; so much discussion and interpretation over so few words!
Let’s look a little into the intentions of each of these four bold statements: Internal Dynamics; sytems thinking; customer focus; and flexibility.
One thing missing is external stateholders - especially business concerns - how to reassure that this process is on track to deliver value? I guess the working software is the measure of that; but this isn’t enough for some stakeholders!
In the spirit of the question: I think I’d change the principles:
Deliver working software frequently, from a
couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a
preference to the shorter timescale.
I think the intention is still correct however,the trend on this principle is deliver much more frequently than monthly; especially on the web, even for massive companies.
I’m likely to come back to this post; I’ve more to say… “`