Manifesto for Anti-Agile Software Development — Principles

Principles behind the Anti-Agile Manifesto

Image Credit: Manifesto for Agile Software Development

We follow these principles:

1. Our highest priority is to satisfy ourselves through late and sporadic delivery of mediocre software.
2. Reject changing requirements, yet be late in development. Anti-agile processes resist change until it becomes urgent, for our own convenience.
3. Deliver buggy software rarely, from a couple of quarters to a couple of years, with a preference to the longer timescale.
4. Business people and developers must work separately throughout the project.
5. Conduct projects using demotivated human resources. Give them the minimum resources and support they need, and micromanage them to keep them busy.
6. The most efficient and effective method of overloading the development team with information, without communicating with them, is via text or recorded message passed from many intermediaries.
7. Working software is irrelevant; obsolete documentation and made up reports are the primary measure of progress.
8. Anti-agile processes promote unsustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and workers should be exhausted by constant pressure and overtime.
9. Ignore technical excellence and good design; they are obstacles to incoordination.
10. Complexity–the art of maximizing the amount of useless effort–is essential.
11. The best architectures, requirements, and decisions are enforced hierarchically top-down by non-experts.
12. At irregular intervals, workgroups blame each other, talk on each other’s back, overreact, argue on how to become effective, then ignore and repeat their behaviour accordingly.

Read the values of the Manifesto for Anti-Agile Software Development

I write about organizational patterns, transformational leadership, healthy businesses, high-performing teams, future of workplace, culture, mindset, biases and more. My focus is in leading, training, and coaching teams and organizations in improving their agile adoption. Articles are the result of my ideas, studies, reading, research, courses, and learning. The postings on this site and any social profile are my own and do not represent or relate to the postings, strategies, opinions, events, situations of any current or former employer.

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