Agile

In the late 1990's several methodologies began to get increasing public attention. Each had a different combination of old ideas, new ideas, and transmuted old ideas. But they all emphasized close collaboration between the programmer team and business experts; face-to-face communication (as more efficient than written documentation); frequent delivery of new deployable business value; tight, self-organizing teams; and ways to craft the code and the team such that the inevitable requirements churn was not a crisis.

Early 2001 saw a workshop in Snowbird, Utah, USA, where various originators and practitioners of these methodologies met to figure out just what it was they had in common. They coined the term "agile" as an umbrella term and crafted the Manifesto for Agile Software Development , whose most important part was a statement of shared development values:

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

Responding to change over following a plan

That is, while there is value in the items on the right,

we value the items on the left more.

(See also the Agile Manifesto Website.)

Kent Beck, Mike Beedle, Arie van Bennekum, 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, Dave Thomas

The Manifesto struck a chord, and it led to many new Agile projects being started. As with any human endeavor, some succeeded and some failed. But what was striking about the successes was how much both the business people and the technical people loved their project. This was the way they wanted software development done. Successful projects spawned enthusiasts.

The Agile Alliance exists to help more Agile projects succeed and to help the enthusiasts start more Agile projects. This particular page is to help people learn more about Agile software development. In keeping with the Agile emphasis on face-to-face communication, we urge you to visit a user's group and talk to your peers about their experience. But we also provide this Roadmap, which intends to give you a quick introduction in various agile methods and tools. Click on the links below to get more info on a certain method or tool.

Agile Frameworks

Scrum

Extreme Programming

Crystal

Dynamic System Development Method

Agile Database Techniques and Agile Modeling

Lean Software Development

Feature Driven Development

Agile Books

The Mythical Man-Month (Frederic Brooks)

Agile Software Development, Principles, Practices and Patterns (Robert Martin)

Agile Software Development (Alistair Cockburn)

Agile Software Development Ecosystems (Jim Highsmith)

This is the full list of agility related books at Amazon

A face to a name (well, of sorts...)