An umbrella term for a variety of best practices in software development. These methods have proven to be more effective in dealing with changing requirements during the development phase, which always seem to occur. The agile methods emphasize teamwork, customer involvement and the frequent creation of small, working pieces of the total system.
The "Agile Manifesto" was created in 2001 by 17 people involved with Scrum, XP and other software development methods, and the Agile Alliance www.agilealliance.org) was founded to promote the agile philosophy. Contrast with waterfall development. See Scrum,
The Agile Manifesto
Following is a summary of the philosophy behind the Manifesto (for details on all twelve of its principles, visit www.agilemanifesto.org). It states that although the items on the right have value, the items on the left (boldfaced) have more value.
Individuals and interactions over processes and tools.
Working software over comprehensive documentation.
Customer collaboration over contract negotiations.
Responding to change over following a plan.
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