The Agile Manifesto was written in 2001 and comprises several principles and values that are
guidelines for building software. After two decades, when the pandemic hit, the software shifted
to the telecommuting modality. One could question the validity of Agile Manifesto principles
and values if they uphold modern Software Engineering.
The Agile Manifesto focuses on four core principles:
- Individuals and interactions over processes and tools.
- Working software over comprehensive documentation.
- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation.
- Responding to change over following a plan.
The shift to telecommunicating puts a challenge on Individuals and Interactions. The critical
criteria of this value is to improve the quality of interactions and emphasize the individuals.
Modern Technology tools such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams yielded virtual meetings and pair
programming sessions, allowing teams to collaborate closely. The working software remains apt
in the telecommuting world. Having team members distributed worldwide and having a working
product that converges all the team members to a single point of direction is crucial. With the
rise of telecommuting, many business companies have become more virtual. This was mainly
due to the fact that customer's active and continuous feedback through online communication
tools. In a telecommuting world, developers and customers are accessing products in the digital
environment such that the developers are aligned with the needs of the users, which allows for
making iterative development more responsive. The change to telecommuting obviously imposes
a challenge. Having distributed teams, varying time zones, and changing home-work
environments can be a hindrance to communication, cohesion, and productivity. This could
contradict the Agile’s rapid, immediate, and rich communication. This suggests that Agile should
not always stick to the predefined plan but respond to change by updating its principles or
introducing new ones. Focusing on the predefined plan for all the challenges that software is
facing now or the challenges it will face in the future, will obviously lead to peril.
Even though the values and principles of the Agile Manifesto seem to abide by modern Software
Engineering, there is always room for improvement. The Agile Manifesto can improve its
principles by enforcing some changes in its methodology.
The Agile Methodologies should emphasize using the telecommuting and collaboration tools
effectively. The teams should maximize the efficacy of the communication tools while
improving in Software Engineering. Telecommunication involves synchronous (virtual meetings,
live sessions, etc.) and asynchronous (email, message threads, pull requests, etc.). The Agile
Manifesto should also focus on both types by facing and solving the challenges imposed by
them. The Manifesto does not mention about cyber security or virtual communication but
leverages them hoping to maintain product security. The increased usage of telecommunication
has made it prone to cybersecurity attacks. Organizations are at high risk if they have low-level
security over their communication channels. Agile should involve means to enforce strong
cybersecurity practices as a part of their regular processes. In the future, the software industry
will face more challenges in the future, undergo change/evolution, The advent of quantum
computing could change the dynamics of global software structure, and the strengthening of
artificial intelligence may bring out new challenges. By continuously updating and adapting its
practices of Agile Manifesto it ensures that the software development is future-proofed against
unexpected shifts.
In conclusion, the Agile Manifesto, at its essence, remains highly relevant in the era of
telecommuting. The core values the Agile Manifesto comprises offer guidance even when there
is continuous evolution in software engineering. Even though modern technology imposes new
challenges, which might be hard for Agile methods, they are not insurmountable. By adapting
the tools and practices of today and updating some of the Agile principles, Agile can continue to
guide software development for a couple of years.
Top comments (0)