From the Archive: A Brief History of the Agile Manifesto with Uncle Bob Martin

November 23, 2022

This week, our heroes dig into the interview archives to present the legendary "Uncle Bob," Martin. We learn about the history of the Agile Manifesto and if any parts were written in a hot tub.

In early 2001, seventeen software consultants got together to discuss a different way to build software. At the end of the meeting, what emerged was “The Agile Manifesto”: A short, simple statement that highlights the value of people and flexibility over processes and planning.

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools.
• Working software over comprehensive documentation.
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation.
• Responding to change over following a plan.

What about these four simple lines was so appealing that made it the gold standard of building software that it is today?

In this episode, Derek and Jeremy talk with the legendary Robert C. Martin, author, software engineer, and one of the seventeen original authors of the manifesto, about the origins of the idea and how it evolved into a software development standard practice.

Topics:
• 03: 57 – Scientific Management vs Tinkering method
• 04:34 – The emergence of the waterfall method
• 05:06 – Tinkering starts to become more popular
• 07:28 – Extreme Programming
• 09:32 – Bob’s mind is blown!
• 12:28 – Martin Fowler and Bob team up
• 13:09 – Alistair Cockburn joins forces
• 13:53 – 17 consultants make history
• 15:05 – The “magical” moment
• 17:43 – “Agile” wins the day
• 18:44 – Was it dumb luck?
• 19:42 – There was no hot tub time ?
• 21:19 – Agile enters industry
• 24:07 – Scrum becomes synonymous with Agile
• 25:57 – Agile morphs into a project management philosophy
• 28:32 – Bob’s thoughts on UX design
• 30:53 – Are the agile ideas core concepts? Or do we need to iterate on them further?
• 32:10 – Moore’s Law is to blame for expecting everything to constantly change
• 36:17 – Jeremy comes around to Agile
• 46:03 – Leaders change and so will the thing you’re building

Helpful Links:
• C2.com
• The History of The Agile Manifesto
• agilealliance.org
• cleancoders.com
• The Orville

For more insights from Uncle Bob, sign up for his upcoming Wednesday Webinars at TheCleanCoder.eventbrite.com, and don’t forget to check out his awesome videos at cleancoders.com.

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Guests

Robert Martin (Uncle Bob) (@unclebobmartin) has been a programmer since 1970- co-founder of the on-line video training company: cleancoders.com , and founder of Uncle Bob Consulting LLC. He is an acclaimed speaker at conferences worldwide, and the author of many books including: The Clean Coder, Clean Code, Agile Software Development: Principles, Patterns, and Practices, and UML for Java Programmers. He is a prolific writer and has published hundreds of articles, papers, and blogs. He served as the Editor-in-chief of the C++ Report, and as the first chairman of the Agile Alliance. He is the creator of the acclaimed educational video series at cleancoders.com.