Despite being only a recent trend in Digital companies, Agile development methodologies have been going on for almost two decades. Surely we’ve all heard the story of this group of seventeen “thought leaders” met and agreed the core value and principles for better Software development; formally writing in 2001 the Agile Manifesto. It reads the core values on the left prioritized over those on the right:

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

• Working software over comprehensive documentation

• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

• Responding to change over following a plan

Basically, frustrated by the unsuccessful traditional way of delivering software, they agreed there was no way to make work what fundamentally was wrong. Perhaps old school was simply no longer suitable for the 21st century the digital transformation. It was time instead to start thinking new/fresh and accept the reality: your people ambitions to grow, customer feedbacks, business and stake holders expectations and fast market changes. In support of promoting those values they also defined 12 principles summarized here:

1. Achieve customer satisfaction by continuous delivery of valuable software
2. Always accept requirement changes, no matter how late in the project, to secure customers competitive advantage
3. Deliver software – that works – within short timescale, preferably by-weekly
4. Both business professionals and developers must work closely together throughout the project
5. Build projects around motivated people, support them and create for them an environment of recognition, trust, and empowerment.
6. Face-to-face conversations are the most efficient and effective way to transfer information
7. Working software is the key measure of success.
8. Agile processes promote sustainable development with sponsors, developers and users keeping a constant pace
9. Enhance your agility striving for tech excellence and solid design
10. Keep it simple. Being able to maximize the work that is not required is vital
11. Self organized teams produce the best architectures, requirements and designs
12.  Teams should  reflect regularly on how to be more effective and adjust behaviors accordingly

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