Agile Methods (Agile)
Introduction
On February 12, 2001, seventeen critics of process-based software development improvement models, convened by Kent Beck, who had published a couple of years earlier Extreme Programming Explained, a book in which he presented a new methodology called Extreme Programming, met in Snowbird, Utah) to discuss techniques and processes for developing software. At the meeting the term "Agile Methods" was coined to define the methods that were emerging as an alternative to formal methodologies (CMMI, SPICE) which they considered excessively “heavy” and rigid due to their normative nature and strong dependence on detailed planning prior to development.
The members of the meeting summarized the principles on which alternative methods are based in four postulates, which has been called Agile Manifesto.
Until 2005, radical positions have been common between the defenders of process models and the defenders of agile models, perhaps more concerned with disqualifying the other than in studying their methods and getting to know them to improve their own.
In the Agile Manifesto, signed by 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") and Dave Thomas "Dave Thomas (programmer)"),[1] it is stated that:
Agile Manifesto Values[2]
Value individuals and their interactions more than processes and tools
This is possibly the most important principle of the manifesto. Of course processes help work. They are an operation guide. Tools improve efficiency, but without people with technical knowledge and the right attitude, they do not produce results.
Companies usually preach very loudly that their employees are the most important thing, but the reality is that in the 90s the theory of process-based production, process reengineering, has given these more relevance than they can have in tasks that owe much of their value to the knowledge and talent of the people who perform them. Furthermore, it focuses on individuals, the roles are interchangeable.