Reflecting on Agile Manifesto.
Published: 2024-01-28 23:53:21

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.