Brief History of Agile Movement Posted by Udayan Banerjee on March 23, 2012 · 34 Comments

In February this year agile movement completes 11 years of existence. I am sure you are either using some form of agile methodology or examining the possibility of using them. But, are you aware of how the agile movement happened? Did it happen by chance or was it inevitable? Do you know what influenced the agile manifesto? Who the authors are? What are their backgrounds and what do they do now? How was the name “Agile” selected?

The Influencers

It is clear from the notes published by Jon Kern that 4 methodologies had significant influence on the manifesto – they are:

Scrum (Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber – also Mike Beedle) DSDM (DSDM Consortium represented by Arie van Bennekum) ASD (Jim Highsmith) XP (Kent Beck, Ward Cunningham and Ron Jeffries – Martin Fowler)

Prior to the meet all these methodologies were classified as “Lightweight Methodologies”. The meet happened as a logical consequence of an earlier get together of XP proponents organized by Kent Beck. The push for the actual meet came from Bob Martin. Here are the milestones (1992-2003) that had significant impact on the movement. Also, I have tried to attach a face to every name – hope you find it interesting.

1992 – Crystal Methods

Crystal was the starting point of the evolution of software development methodologies which ultimately resulted in what we know as agile movement. The honor of creating Crystal goes to Alistair Cockburn. The methodology was named “Crystal” only in 1997.Crystal can be applied to teams of up to 6 or 8 co-located developers working on systems that are not life-critical. You can see the seeds of agile manifesto in Crystal because it focuses on – (1) Frequent delivery of usable code to users, (2) Reflective improvement and (3) Osmotic communication preferably by being co-located. Here is a post by him on “Notes on the writing of the agile manifesto“. He is a consulting fellow at Humans and Technology which he had founded. (See: His Biography page) I could not locate him in LinkedIn.

1993 – Refactoring

Refactoring was coined by Bill Opdyke in a paper titled “Creating Abstract Superclasses by Refactoring”.This is how Wikipedia describes code refactoring:Code refactoring is “disciplined technique for restructuring an existing body of code, altering its internal structure without changing its external behavior”, undertaken in order to improve some of the nonfunctional attributes of the software. He is now the Architecture Lead at JPMorgan Chase. (Soure: LinkedIn profile)

1994 – Dynamic Systems Development Method

DSDM, unlike all the other items listed in this post, was created by a Consortium. The consortium was an association of vendors and experts in the field of software engineering. The objective was to “jointly developing and promoting an independent RAD framework” by combining their best practice experiences.There isn’t any individual who can be credited with the creation of DSDM but Jennifer Stapleton, as one of the founder member of DSDM consortium was instrumental in the initial compilation of thoughts. She is now a management consultant in UK. (See: LinkedIn profile) Arie van Bennekum, one of the authors of the agile manifesto has been actively involved in DSDM and the DSDM Consortium since 1997.DSDM focuses on the following 8 principles of (1) Focus on the business need, (2) Deliver on time, (3) Collaborate, (4) Never compromise quality, (5) Build incrementally from firm foundations, (6) Develop iteratively, (7) Communicate continuously and clearly and (9) Demonstrate control. Again, you can see the seeds of agile manifesto! He is now a Senior Consultant, Programmanager, Project Manager, Facilitator, Trainer, Coach, Mentor, Teacher etc. in Netherlands. (See: LinkedIn profile)

1995 – Scrum and Pair Development

Scrum

SCRUM was jointly created by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaberwho presented a paper describing it at OOPSLA ’95 in Austin, Texas.Jeff Sutherland is the CEO at Scrum, Inc. (Source: LinkedIn profile). Ken Schwaber is a founder of Scrum.org. (Source: LinkedIn profile). Mike Beedle has been one of the very early adopter on Scrum and has introduced Scrum to many organizations since the mid-90’s.As you know Scrum has practically been the de facto standard for agile. He is now the Founder and CEO at Enterprise Scrum. (See: LinkedIn profile)

Pair Development

1997 – Feature Driven Development

1999 – Many Things Happened

Adaptive Software Development

The Pragmatic Programmer

Extreme Programming, User Stories, Release Planning and Continuous Integration

2000 – Events leading up to the Manifesto

Bob Martintook the initiative to get the ball rolling on organizing the historic meeting to be held on February 2001 at “The Lodge” at Snowbird ski resort in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah.He is the Owner of Uncle Bob Consulting. (See: LinkedIn profile)

2001 – Agile Manifesto

2001 February + ‘The Lodge’ at Snowbird Ski Resort + 17 Thinkers = Agile Manifesto

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, Bob Martin, Stephen Mellor, Ken Schwaber, Jeff Sutherland, and Dave Thomas

2002 – More Agile Concepts

Test Driven Development

For TDD the credit goes to Kent Beck. The concept of Test Driven Development also originated from XP test-first approach. It was given a shape later by Kent Beck through the book Test Driven Development: By Example.

Planning Poker

What about Brian Marick and Stephen Mellor?

He is the Owner at Exampler Consulting and calls himself Software consultant, specializing in agile methods with a testing slant. (See: LinkedIn profile) He calls himself a “Freeter”, a Japanese word, derived from English, that means “free agent.” (Source: His home page)He resides in Zimbabwe and here is his LinkedIn profile.

2003 – Lean Software Development

Is Lean Software Developmentan extension to agile methodology? Should we look at it as something distinct from agile? Should it find a place in this post? I have included it for the primary reason that many agilists consider it to be one of the future directions of agile movement.Anyway; term was coined by Mary Poppendieck and Tom Poppendieckin 2003.It is an adaptation of lean manufacturing principles and practices to the software development. There are seven principles – (1) Eliminate waste, (2) Amplify learning, (3) Decide as late as possible, (4) Deliver as fast as possible, (5) Empower the team, (6) Build integrity in and (7) See the whole. Amplify learning, deliver as fast as possible, empower the team etc. goes very well with agile principles. I am not so sure about eliminate waste and see the whole.