The 12 Principles of the Agile Manifesto and Their Inversion

In 2001, the Agile Manifesto and its 12 principles were proposed to change how software development projects were developed.

It answered the question, Why Agile Is Best for Managing Projects in Principle, but ultimately, it's simply guidance to ...

Don't Do Stupid Things On Purpose.

Let’s start with the 12 principles of the Agile Manifesto.

These 12 principles are the foundation of project success on any software development project, in any project domain, and have become the basis of much of the literature on agile software development. Like all good manifestos, they are taken as gospel by those applying them. And like all gospels, they are sacred texts to be studied, put to use, admired, and left unchallenged.

Let’s look at the taxonomy of these 12 principles in light of simple, well-practiced, good management principles.

1. Management principles should do no harm. They should leave the people, processes, and tools better off than before they were applied.
2. Management principles should make improvements whenever possible without some form of improvement. Why bother?
3. Principles should apply in known ways, with known or known beneficial outcomes. These outcomes should have some effectiveness, efficiency, and performance measures.
4. In the end, the management principles should provide guidance for their application to specific situations, domains, and contexts in that domain.

Let's invert the 12 principles to see how much sense they would make.

So what's unique about the 12 Agile Principles in the manifesto?

Nothing

They are simply good management practices.

• Nothing special.
• Nothing unique.
• Nothing groundbreaking.

Just simple good management practices in any domain, in any context, using any project development and management practices.