The Agile Manifesto is the foundational document on which all common agile frameworks are built. It articulates four core values and twelve principles that prioritize individuals and interactions over processes, working software over documentation, customer collaboration over contract negotiation, and responding to change over following a plan. Crucially, the items on the right side do have value, but the left side is weighted more heavily.
In practice, the Manifesto serves as a reference frame when teams or organizations introduce agile ways of working or question existing practices. If a team realizes it spends more time on process documentation than on collaborating with users, the Manifesto provides the argumentative basis for a course correction. The twelve principles make the values concrete and offer guidance for daily work, such as the emphasis on short delivery cycles and self-organizing teams.
The Manifesto was created in February 2001 when 17 software developers met in Snowbird, Utah, to formulate shared principles. It is deliberately concise and describes attitudes, not methods.
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