The Agile Manifesto History Agile manifesto was established in February 2001 by a group of Software developers containing 17 members

after meeting at a remote Resort located in Wasatch Mountains of Utah. The members who participated are as follows, Kent Beck, Mike Beedle, Arie Van Bennekum, Alistair Cockburn, Ward Cunningham, Martin Fowler, James Grenning, Jim Highsmith, Andrew Hunt, Ron Jeffries, Jon Kern, Brian Marick, Robert Cecil Martin, Steve Mellor, Ken Schwaber, Jeff Sutherland, David Thomas. The Manifesto Agile manifesto is a declaration that describes the core principles of agile development methodologies. This principles help software developers to use agile methods effectively and efficiently. The Agile manifesto contains 12 principles and it values four major areas in software development. The concerned four major areas in general; these areas describe what are valued in this concept. Individuals and interactions over processes and tools. Working software over comprehensive documentation. Customer collaboration over contract negotiation. Responding to change over following a plan.

In detail above four areas defines that, Individual participation and interactions are more important than tools and processes, this means this is more people oriented approach. Working software is important than the documentation process, this means it is more product oriented method which concerns about a quality working software rather than taking time on documentation. Customer collaboration is more important than the contract negotiation, this means that it more suitable to collaborate with the customer and change rather than negotiating about the contract it-self. Responding to change is more important than following the plan, the process should be flexible and it should have the capability to change as desired, rather than following an inappropriate plan. The manifesto further describes what it means to be agile by concatenating its philosophy into 12 principles. They are given below, *Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.*Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer's competitive advantage. * Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter time scale. * Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project. * Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done. * The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-toface conversation. * Working software is the primary measure of progress. * Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely. * Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility. * Simplicity the art of maximizing the amount of work not done is essential. * The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from selforganizing teams. * At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly. These principles explain how agile methods should be carried out in-order to get the maximum productivity and the satisfaction out from agile methods which are mostly used in Rapid Application Development. The first principle explains that the most important thing in software development is developing software and it further states that software development process can be started without a proper plan and the development work can be started just with a basic plan, like in evolutionary prototype. Since the requirements of a project can be vague and dynamic, the second principle tells the developers to embrace the changes that are taking place in requirements with a proper change management process without trying to avoid the changes. The third principle explains how stake holders feedback can be obtained by delivering working software frequently. In the third principle the importance of customer or the stakeholders involvement is mentioned and the fifth principle mentions that the software development process should evolve around highly motivated set of employees and they should be provided with the freedom and with the necessary resources to perform the job, they must be allowed to try new things or do whatever needed within the boundaries inorder to achieve the targets. As the next fact it is said that the development team must communicate effectively within the team in-order to succeed in development process and the most effective way to do this is face to face communication. The primary measure of software development process has to be the delivery of software itself, if the team is measuring their outcomes using the working software they can easily find out the problems which are connected to the development process. In the eighth principle Sustainable development means finding a working pace that the team can sustain over time and remain healthy. In the ninth principle it is said that continuous attention must be provided to technical and design factors in-order to enhance agility. In the next principle it is said in agile methods it is always better to use the simplest way to achieve an objective because simple methods are easier to change, to add something to a process or to remove something from a process is easier. In the eleventh principle it is said that the best designs (architectures, requirements) emerge from iterative development and use rather than from early plans. The second point of the principle is that emergent properties are best generated from self-organizing teams in which the interactions are high and the process rules are few. In the final principle it is mentioned that the developing teams itself has to monitor their progress and adapt according to the situation, this will add more flexibility and higher level of understanding about the process. Agile process is based on some concrete facts and it really helps to develop agile development methodologies and further the following diagram explains the twelve principles of agile manifesto.