The Agile Manifesto is often only partially quoted
Thursday, January 25th, 2007If I was to ask you to quote the Agile Manifesto what would you say?
- People and interactions over processes and tools
- Working software over comprehensive documentation
- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
- Responding to change over following a plan
That is, whilst there is value in those items on the right, we value the items on the left more.”
That’s what I’d say and what I’ve heard others say, however it isn’t actually all of the Agile Manifesto, there are a couple more lines at the start.
We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value:
It’s a shame these get missed because there is a lot in them. “We are uncovering”, note the tense here, it is present not past, it is still ongoing, we are still learning. “Better ways” - by saying better rather than best it’s acknowledged that this isn’t the definitive answer or that any previous methods didn’t work at all. “By doing it and helping other do it” - this is not some untested theory, this has been reached through real world experience.