Agile Manifesto Deep Dive #1: The Four Core Values

Author’s Note: It is my opinion that the Agile Manifesto is arguably one of the most valuable documents to come out of the IT departments of the corporate world. The following post is my interpretation of the Agile Manifesto using my own experiences as a Scrum Master, Project/Program Manager and PMO Manager. At the end you will see my “All In” rating – this is my level of agreement/adherence/commitment to what’s been discussed. I encourage you to leave a comment should your experiences lead you to a different interpretation – a healthy dialog is just that, healthy.

A Brief History Lesson

What manifested during a 2-day meeting in Utah has led to numerous (hundreds? thousands?) of companies adopting a way of work that has made a measurable difference in their IT culture, delivery and management. If you read the history of the Agile Manifesto, you will quickly see that many of the Agile Methodologies that you’ve read about have been around longer than the Agile Manifesto itself. XP, SCRUM, DSDM, FDD, Pragmatic Programming – they were around before 2002 when the manifesto was created. So, if these were established delivery methods in place already, why create the manifesto? What happened in 2002 at Snowbird Ski Resort in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah was an amalgamation of the thoughts and feelings of software delivery experts that were sick of being crapped on by “Dilbertesque organizations” and managers that knew nothing about what it actually took for their team to do the job, resulting in empty promises to stakeholders.

The history gives great examples of what they call the “mushy stuff of values and culture”. PEOPLE (as) INDIVIDUALS not stuck in process-laden delivery, but COLLABORATING to RESPOND TO CHANGE in order to deliver value. They were tired of being told “people are our most important asset”. Asset?! They yearned for organizations that treated them as professionals tasked with providing value to the organization, not card-punchers filling out process sheets because “that’s just how they do it”. They were looking for a way to deliver meaningful work that brought value to the organization (their team, their department) sooner than later.

So, in February 2002, a bunch of organizational anarchist hackers (self-labeled) got together to talk solutions. They argued, swapped stories and talked about real life examples to help provide the color behind their stories. In the end, they formed an Agile Alliance – “a group of independent thinkers supporting people who explore and apply Agile values, principles, and practices to make building software solutions more effective, humane, and sustainable”. Out of this first draft of the Agile Alliance came the Agile Manifesto and the Four Core Values of Agile.

The Four Core Values

  • INDIVIDUALS AND INTERACTIONS over processes and tools.
  • WORKING SOFTWARE over comprehensive documentation
  • CUSTOMER COLLABORATION over contract negotiation
  • RESPONDING TO CHANGE over following a plan

My Take on the Four Core Values

Oh boy, would I have liked to be a fly on the wall in that conference room! Their combined brain power alone would be nuclear and the stories they would tell would be great to hear. They actually mention one of the stories in the History of the Agile Manifesto – and it’s a story most of us have lived. It all comes down to organizations “not wanting to make hard trade-off decisions, so they impose irrational demands through the imposition of corporate power structures.” Once you’ve lived this scenario, you never forget it.

Put yourself in the shoes of a developer who’s just provided an estimate of 6 weeks for 2 developers to deliver a feature. She’s provided a WBS and rough estimates to complete it. The work gets approved, but instead of two developers doing the work, it’s been changed to one developer (demand increased for another project and the 2nd developer had to be reassigned) – but the TIME COMMITMENT has been “locked in” and expectations are set. When the work takes 12 weeks, who’s to blame?

I’m sure the developer (we will call her Tammy) would have immediately went to her manager and said something like:

Tammy – “So, we are down a developer, what can we cut out?”
Manager – “Nothing… we’ve made a commitment, you need to get it done.”
Tammy – “Can we cut out the documentation, maybe make it leaner? Or meet with the client regularly to lock in more refined requirements to possibly save some effort? Could we get someone assigned from the business to give us weekly feedback on the work we are doing to shorten the feedback loop?”
Manager – “Tammy, there is a process. We have process for a reason and the customer trusts us to deliver as promised… follow the process. The deadline is locked in, we have no one else available, we need you to rise to the occasion here… you’ve very skilled, we know you will not let the customer down. This project is a big deal for our organization and lots of people are watching, I expect regular updates and need you to join our weekly project status meeting in order to give updates on progress. “

It’s clear this group of Agilists were sick of being told to “be creative” while being pigeon-holed into process adherence. They wanted to provide value, they wanted to DELIVER with pride. They wanted balance, accountability and some semblance of a way to deliver high-quality work ASAP.

The Four Core Values of the Agile Manifesto are a reminder of what’s important in software (technology) delivery. They are the pillars to the structure of delivery that need to be considered at all times. While strict adherence might not be possible, as a pillar, it cannot be taken out – one needs to be creative in figuring out a way to stick to the core value as much as possible.

“All in” rating: 4/5

To explain my rating, I’ll pick one of the core values: Customer collaboration over contract negotiation. Blind adherence to customer collaboration can be dangerous. As soon as you start collaborating, there could be an assumption by the customer that they have input in every aspect of delivery. Once you flip the switch on “customer collaboration”, if you don’t start with the clear instruction that collaboration means you will be discussing only what is IN SCOPE of the agreement, you will always work your way into a collaborative and highly explosive situation where the very mention of “change request” triggers a VP-level conversation that puts the relationship with the customer at risk.

If you perform this kind of analysis for each of the core values you will quickly see there is a very dangerous slippery slope for each if you don’t get ahead of it. That doesn’t mean they aren’t valuable! You just need to think ahead a bit.

Remember, “agile delivery” is not exclusive to big companies, EVERYONE wants to adopt the agile mindset, even companies providing a service. These companies earn their money by providing a service in exchange for delivering an agreed upon solution. Therefore, adherence to the core values needs to be well thought out and appropriately worked into the plan.

Scroll to Top