Refactoring the Agile Manifeston (Posted to InfoQ)
http://www.infoq.com/news/2007/05/refactoring_the_agile_manifesto
At the first ADC conference in Salt Lake City I put to Allistair Cockburn the idea that the Agile Manifesto should be "refactored" ( "rewritten" to non techy, non agile types ). It was obvious that "Business Value" was more important than "Working Software" which was more important than "Extensive Documentation". It was obvious that "Good relationships" were more important than "effective communication". ( You may speak the same language as someone but if you have a bad relationship, well it ain't gonna work ).
Point is, I had him on the ropes... So I thought.
Alistair's response was that the Manifesto was a historical document. It had taken the days at Snowbird to agree the four principles, and then it several weeks of e:mail to agree the rest. This was with a small group of people, less than twenty.
He was right. By the time of ADC v1, the Agile community had grown to a thousand or so people. How do we get them all in a room to agree the new Agile Manifesto. Was it possible?
The Agile Manifesto is a historical document. The community has a choice. We either leave it as it is. An imperfect call to arms for a new generation of developer who believe in Winston Royce's original dream, or do we update it?
Leaving it is easy.
Updating it is hard. We have to find a PROCESS for coming up with Manifesto amendments (think constitutional amendments). We can leave it as a play thing of the Agile Alliance board, letting the 10 or so elected official decide, or we have a referendum. Chose your poison.
I vote for leaving it alone. I don't need a written set of rules to tell me what Agile is. I'll make it up myself. I would rather do something useful... Like invent cool new tools and methodologies.
Good night. I'm off to bed.
Posted by chrismatts at May 23, 2007 10:18 AM