Agile Origins

Normally, the transition from waterfall to Agility through learning and experience of a framework such as Scrum is natural and even advisable, although sooner or later you discover what is necessary and sufficient to realize that to be Agile you do not need a rigid framework with predefined roles. Each member, team, and context are different, with different needs. With so much information about practices, methodologies, frameworks, do we really know what Agility consists of? I think a good way to understand it is by knowing its origin and its evolution:

After the Second World War, the United States occupied Japan, applying its successful production techniques, adapting and influenced by Eastern philosophy and knowledge, originating in a very short time an exponential improvement and placing Japan in one of the main economies of the world, serving as an example to the rest of the world’s economies.

1970

Tachii Ohno joined Toyota thanks to his father’s relations with the founding family of the brand (Toyoda). He became director and vice president of Toyota and a master of quality. He studied the Fordist and Taylorist production systems so successful in the United States, adopting their same production processes, although eliminating waste (muda), providing value at the required time and in the necessary quantity (Just In Time) with the highest quality thanks to a close relationship with its customers. He applied the Kaizen philosophy (continuous improvement), used a card system for the control and visualization of the workflow (Kanban), other techniques and practices (5S, 5Whys), among many other valuable contributions. Thus giving rise to Lean Manufacturing and Toyota Production System or TPS, becoming known in 1970.

1986

Hirotaka Taekuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka write The New New development game in Harvard Business Review, where they analyze and describe common patterns in techniques, production processes and team management models in successful companies of the moment such as Canon, Xerox, Toyota, Honda, HP, in which a great speed in the market launch of their new products was required, or what is the same: Rapid-Application Development The authors analyze and unify the most efficient and common practices of their studies reflecting it in their article. They define multidisciplinary and autonomous teams using a comparison with Rugby and the scrum (scrum in English), where the whole team participates and collaborates for a common goal.

1993

Jeff Sutherland adapted and applied the techniques described in the software industry, being in 1995 and jointly with Ken Schwaber where the new framework that we all know today of Scrum was finally formalized (based on the comparison described by Hirotaka Taekuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka in their article). Some less popular frameworks and methodologies arise today following the same principles:- Alistair Cockburn worked with IBM to create a new alternative methodology interviewing teams from successful companies and in the same way as in the article by Hirotaka Taekuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka found common patterns that he compiled in a new methodology called Crystal Clear. In the United Kingdom, a group of software development providers and experts do the same, creating a framework called Dynamic Systems development method.

1996

Kent Beck, Ron Reffries and Ward Cunnigant work together on a payroll project at the company Crysler. Where under the influence of all the changes and innovations of the moment in software development, they apply and adopt various practices and techniques giving emphasis to the quality of the code and the expansion of knowledge in the team. Three years later and under all that experience, Kent Beck compiles them and publishes his first edition of the book XP Explained: Embrace the change. Thus describing a series of values, principles and practices as a new methodology called eXtreme Programming.

2001

Kent Beck tries to unify all the experiences of the new movement in software development and invites several gurus of the moment to jointly create a common manifesto. Among them are the creators of Scrum, Crystal and other agile methodologies. At that moment Kent Beck suggests the new concept of Agile. Giving rise to the principles of the agile manifesto.

2003

Mary and Tom Poppendieck based on Lean Manufacturing and Toyota Production System or TPS and under the influence of the latest changes in the agile movement, adapt it to software development writing the book Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit.

Everything followed its evolution and many concepts have been appearing around agility Agile Project Management, Management 3.0, Software Craftsmanship, etc. You see that there is a wide range of possibilities, but all of them with common differentiating factors with traditional models. It is the values and principles of each Agile team that will determine their practices depending on their context. In the end, the objective is common in all cases: to deliver useful value, with the highest quality and as soon as possible.