Prosjektledelse Prosjektledelse nr. 2 2019 | Page 30

AGILE MANIFESTO
How Well Does the
Agile Manifesto Align
with Principles that
Lead to Success in
Product Development?
BY TOM GILB
Background Unfortunately, the Agile Manifesto states embar-
I carried out my first 20-value-delivery-step agile rassing platitudes, with no visible foundation or
IT project in 1960 on an invoicing system in Oslo purpose. In this article, I will discuss the Agile
when I was 20 and I just used my common sense. Manifesto point by point: its four values and
It was a radical re-architecting of what IBM initi- ten principles. I will first attempt to answer the
ally sold to my client. So I realized that 'smarter question of how I aligned with the value or prin-
architecture' might be needed to deliver results ciple. Then I will add my own ideas, and a refor-
stepwise, with learning at each step. mulation of the principles.
Then I began to realize not everyone in this busi- In general, I was never impressed with the expo-
ness has common sense. But many smarter peo- sitions concerning Agile because of what I consi-
ple shared the agile ideas, which we called "Evo- dered their “fuzziness”. But the thirsty world out
lutionary" at the time. there did get seduced by that fuzziness. 'Survival
is not mandatory' as W. Edwards Deming said.
With few exceptions I was for over 35 years a lone
voice in the wilderness: the masses, including If I were to put blame on a single factor, I would
the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), believed in blame the management MBA culture. Too much
Waterfall, and I was obviously a bit unconventio- 'bean counting' and too little about 'managing
nal and ignored, as I often am today concerning values' and 'delivering qualities' that actually pro-
the need for engineering methods in software vide financial value.
and management.
Fortunately for me, there were several exceptio-
with these 'evolutionary' ideas, for example, HP, The Four Values of the Agile
Manifesto
Intel, Boeing, Ericsson, and Confirmit in Norway - Her er link til hele artikkelen:
and others, all of whom had more quantified docu- www.ppi-int.com/wp-content/
mented success than any of the Manifesto Agile uploads/2018/02/SyEN_62.pdf
nal organizations that requested me to help them
offspring. I was not alone, rather, a quiet minority.
30 PROSJEKTLEDELSE • NR. 2 2019