Chapter 1 - Agile in Software

Back in the 1990s, the software industry was facing some big problems. First, it was still pretty young, and there weren't enough skilled software developers around. Second, the industry was stuck using a rigid project management method called "waterfall." This method puts a lot of emphasis on creating long lists of requirements, often more for legal contracts than for actually working with clients. This lack of collaboration led to a lot of mistrust.

What's more, software wasn't made the way it is today, with small, gradual improvements. Instead, it was created in massive packages. Think of the old Office 95 software – it had thousands of features, but hardly anyone used them all. Developing such huge packages took years, and even then, they often had bugs. The Pareto Law shows that only about 20% of the software was used, meaning 80% of the resources and development went to waste.

The industry was exhausted and desperately needed a change. That change was brought about by some skilled software developers. In 2001, a group of them got together to transform the way software was made. They created the Agile Manifesto for software, which laid out four new core values (in section 1.1) and 12 principles (in section 1.2) for the industry. These changes led to various practices and new ways of managing Agile projects (in section 1.3), resulting in a fresh mindset (in section 1.4).