Manifesto for Agile Software Development

The first key value of the Agile Manifesto is to value people and communication over rigid processes and tools. If a company value processes and tools, the processes are on average clearer, but the processes and tools will be gradually out-of-date due to the lack of updates. New processes and tools are created by humans. In a human-centric company, the improvements made to processes and tools by its employees greatly boost the company's overall productivity.

One of the principles relevant to the first key value is that business people and developers are supposed to work together on a daily basis. The communication is of great importance in DevOps as listed above. Since the requirements are constantly changing and the highest priority is for the customer, working together helps the developers quickly notice the requirement changes and react accordingly.

Another related principle states that the face-to-face conversation is the most efficient and effective method for communication within a development team. The information is more likely to divert via multiple channels. The face-to-face communication also delivers the most original idea, which reduces risk of misinterpreting and misunderstanding.

The second key value shows that working software is more important than comprehensive documentation. As stated in the principles, working software is the primary way to measure the development progress. In that case, working software is more persuading than the documentation. The teammates are more likely to honor your progress by working software instead of the documentation. However, the documentation can be the resource that assists in the understanding of working software, while it cannot prevail the importance.

As mentioned above, in order to show the development progress, the quick delivery of working software helps. The shorter timescale informs other teammates about the development progress and improves the communication within the development team. It also reduces the work of detailed documentation because some codes are pretty self-explanatory in the absence of detailed documentation.

The third key value of the Agile Manifesto is to focus on collaboration between the development team and customer, instead of emphasizing contract negotiation. Collaboration will make the product more valuable since the customers are involved to provide helpful feedback to increase values of the product during the sprint review. In addition, technologies and the customers' needs are rapidly changing. Hence, it's hard to determine all the details of the product at the very beginning. By collaborating with the customer, the development team can integrate needed changes with the existing product in a smooth manner.

The highest priority is to satisfy the customer. As we have seen in the manifesto, the agile development delivers the new versions as soon as possible. In this instance, working with customers help the products to be quickly updated and upgraded to meet the customers' needs. Meanwhile, making changes to the products quickly also gathers customers' feedback soon and is of great help for the products.

The fourth key value of the Agile Manifesto is that reacting to change is superior to up-front planning. It's not viable to create a detailed plan in advance if the project context is constantly changing and less information is available at the present time. Feedback from the customer might demand project plan changes as well within the project's timeframe. What's more, the goal of delivering maximum value to the customer is more important than simply following a plan even though plan changes might be essential in order to achieve the goal.

Changing requirements are welcome in agile development since agile devolvement iterates rapidly. Changing requirements allow the developers to react quickly to customers' needs, which not only improves customers' feedback, but also the product quality. Shorter timescale is preferred. Since work is done in small batches, the defects and problems can be easily detected and resolved early. It also helps the developers to identify the problems precisely.