Citizen Development Insights

Since my last post I have received great feedback on what made the Agile Manifesto successful as well as what areas that could have been improved.  The area that caught my interest the most was how the 2001 Agile Manifesto lacked a robust change mechanism.

This will also be the topic of today’s post, which I will start off by disclosing the results from a poll issued on January 11, 2021.

It is worth noting that while the opinion seems to be that the Manifesto would have benefitted from a robust change mechanism, the consensus still is that he Agile Manifesto stood the test of time (see my previous blog post). 

Implementing a robust mechanism to manage change

When asked about it, you also brought up some very interesting considerations if such a mechanism was to be implemented:

·       Having controls in place to prevent that the direction takes a turn for the worse

·       Ensuring that someone is there to appropriately manage the change mechanism

·       The possibility to track the history of changes made to the Manifesto

·       Ensuring that changes are infrequent and necessary

Needless to say a great deal of responsibility is associated with managing such change.

The role of the group

Another area that interests me is the composition of the Agile Alliance. Trying to understand what makes a group successful with their objectives is a challenging task and there are universal guidelines meant to indicate what potential a group like the Agile Alliance has with achieving its objectives. These guidelines includes criteria such as diversity (e.g. gender, cognitive, ethnic etc.), independence and to what degree the members are conflicted. What do you think is the most important trait for the members of a group that is creating a Manifesto? If you have a view, please go ahead and answer our poll here.

I have lately been thinking about how a Manifesto could benefit the Citizen Development community in a similar manner to how it benefitted the Agile community at the start of this Century.

To better my knowledge of how to translate the successful factors of the Agile mindset to Citizen Development I will release a series of blog posts and polls where I ask you for your opinion. This is the first post in that series.

What made the Agile Alliance’s meeting a success?

The story behind the Agile Manifesto is well known. A group of seventeen people (“ The Agile Alliance”) met in a lodge in Utah and worked for two days on the principles, values and beliefs that would become the Agile Manifesto. The group included representatives from Extreme Programming, SCRUM, DSDM, Adaptive Software Development, Crystal, Feature-Driven Development and Pragmatic Programming.

Given the legacy of Agile and everything that has been borne out of the mindset that was made formal with that meeting I think it is fair to say that the meeting was a success but how can this success be explained and what do you think were the key ingredients to the Agile Alliance’s success in designing a Manifesto that is still relevant today? Please share your opinion in this discussion thread. 

Lessons from the 2001 Agile Manifesto

On December 7, 2020, I issued a poll where I asked you if you still believed that the principles of the 2001 Agile Manifesto still are relevant. 61% of you still believed that it was.

With that said, some of you pointed out that certain principles were showing their age. The most clear example of an aged principle being: “The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation”.

Several respondents also called out the importance not to confuse the Agile mindset with the methodologies and procedures born out of that very mindset and that the principles as a statement of intent and purpose still provided a strong foundation for all forms of Agile.

Finally, it was highlighted that nothing in the twelve principles was radical and new at the time the Manifesto was designed back in 2001 but that it was beneficial to have good ways of working formalized.

While most of you still believe that the principles of the Agile Manifesto stands the test of time – would they still have benefitted from being able to be amended? Please provide your opinion in the poll that can be found here.

The Agile Manifesto has been around since 2001 and has benefitted millions of multi-disciplinary professionals across the globe. We believe a Manifesto would be of great use for the Citizen Developer community!

Background

The Agile Manifesto was published in 2001 with the objective to provide an alternative to existing software development processes. It identifies 4 values and 12 principles. Ever since its publication, Agile has expanded to become more of a mind-set that now applies across a broad range of activities and work methods. Over the coming weeks we will release a series of articles, discussions and community polls with the intention to explore benefits with having a Manifesto (and associated principles, values and beliefs) for Citizen Developer.

The original 12 Principles of the Agile Manifesto reads:

1.       Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.

2.       Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer's competitive advantage.

3.       Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.

4.       Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.

5.       Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.

6.       The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.

7.       Working software is the primary measure of progress.

8.       Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.

9.       Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.

10.   Simplicity--the art of maximizing the amount of work not done--is essential.

11.   The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.

12.   At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.

How to get involved:

We would love to get your views and hear from you as we go through the process. To get you started we have published a poll and a discussion thread.

 Poll: Are the principles in the 2001 Agile Manifesto still relevant in 2020? 

Discussion: How can the Citizen Developer movement benefit from a Manifesto similar to the 2001 Agile Manifesto? 

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Martin Kalliomaki