common interests and philosophies, coining the term “agile software development” to describe their methodologies. This unity rocked the software industry. In Snowbird, the Manifesto for Agile Software Developmentb and Principles Behind the Agile Manifestoc were born and endorsed by all 17 attendees, spelling out their values like this:

Manifesto for Agile
Software Development

We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value:

˲ Individuals and interactions

over processes and tools;

˲ Working software

over comprehensive documentation;

˲ Customer collaboration

over contract negotiation; and

˲ Responding to change

over following a plan.

That is, while there is value in the items below (not bold), we value the items above (bold) more.

The Agile Manifesto and the agile principles thus began to serve as a rallying cry for some and the bull’s-eye in the dartboard for others. “Religious” methodology wars ensued between the agilists and those supporting what came to be known as “plan driven, 2 methodologies, the term that came to be used for “not agile” methodologies.

These wars have since subsided. Observations at international agile conferences indicate that companies in all industrial domains have generally come to coexist peacefully with agile methodologies. Many have embraced them, b http://agilemanifesto.org/ c http://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html

key insights

the 12 original agile principles created by 17 software engineers in 2001 defined the agile trend that continues to transform the entire soft ware industry.

Rather than view one another solely as competition, these same engineers also wrote the agile manifesto, cooperatively focusing on their common interest in agile development and greatly magnifying any of their potential individual contributions.

Supported by this foundation, agile practices used by software development teams today continue to evolve to address ever-changing user expectations and development team challenges.

while some use many agile practices and others just a few. Meanwhile, agile practices have evolved, with new ones emerging and others fading away.

So how well do the Agile Manifesto and its 12 principles still capture what is valued by practicing software engineers in industry and by teams that have adopted agile methodologies as their own practices have matured and evolved? How do agile teams regard the principles today? Here, “agile teams” refers to teams claiming to use an agile software development methodology.

Surveys

I conducted two surveys in 2010 at North Carolina State University to weigh the community’s view of the principles and use of associated practices. I administered them through surveymon-key.com, advertising the first survey on a number of agile-related user groups (such as those on Yahoo! and LinkedIn). Additionally, I emailed approximately 100 personal contacts, inviting them to participate and forward the survey to their colleagues. Respondents from the first survey could optionally provide their email address if they wanted me to send aggregated results of the survey. When respondents received these results, I further invited them to participate in a follow-on survey.

The first survey focused on the original principles and commonly used software development practices, as of 2010, beginning the first set of questions with the following instruction, followed by a list of the principles in random order:

How important is this principle that comes from the original agile principles authored in 2001 for agile teams in 2010? ( 1=not very important; 5=essen- tial, the team is not agile if it doesn’t follow this principle)

I began the second set of questions with the following instruction, followed by a list of 45 software development practices typically associated with agile:

What practices are essential for a team to be considered agile? ( 1=not important; 5=essential, a team is not agile unless it does this practice)

With each set of questions, I offered respondents space to provide textual commentary to augment their quantitative responses.

The first survey was completed by
326 respondents with extensive experi-
ence in agile software development (see
the figure here). Those indicating they
had been using an agile methodology
for 10 years or more were using what
came to be called an “agile methodolo-
gy” post-Manifesto. Respondents were
primarily from North America (59%)
and Europe (29%). Of the 326, 18 (55%)
indicated they worked on teams with
30 or more members; 313 (96%) worked
in a distributed fashion, with 110 (34%)
having teams all in the same country,
42 (13%) all in the same continent, and
160 (49%) spread across different con-
tinents; and 52 (16%) indicated they
worked on safety-critical projects.