What is the Agile Manifesto Principles health check?
The Agile Manifesto Principles health check turns each of the 12 principles behind the Agile Manifesto into a statement about your team, such as Our working software is the primary measure of progress. Everyone rates each statement on a five-point scale from Strongly disagree to Strongly agree, so you can see which principles describe how the team really works and which ones it only agrees with on paper. The statements cover the whole list: early and continuous delivery, welcoming late changes, frequent releases, daily collaboration with the business, motivated individuals, face-to-face conversation, working software, sustainable pace, technical excellence, simplicity, self-organization and regular reflection. The lowest-rated principles, and the ones where the team disagrees most, make a ready-made agenda for your next retrospective.
Dimensions
Agile Principles
The twelve principles behind the Agile Manifesto, rated by how strongly your team agrees that each reflects the way you actually work.
Continuous Delivery
Principle 1. Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.
- Strongly disagree
- Neutral
- Strongly agree
Openness to Change
Principle 2. We welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Our agile processes harness change for the customer’s competitive advantage.
- Strongly disagree
- Neutral
- Strongly agree
Frequent Releases
Principle 3. We deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.
- Strongly disagree
- Neutral
- Strongly agree
Collaboration
Principle 4. Our business people and developers work together daily throughout the project.
- Strongly disagree
- Neutral
- Strongly agree
Team Enablement
Principle 5. We build projects around motivated individuals. We give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.
- Strongly disagree
- Neutral
- Strongly agree
Communication
Principle 6. We have efficient and effective face-to-face conversations to convey information to and within a development team.
- Strongly disagree
- Neutral
- Strongly agree
Working Software
Principle 7. Our working software is the primary measure of progress.
- Strongly disagree
- Neutral
- Strongly agree
Sustainable Development
Principle 8. Our agile processes promote sustainable development. Our sponsors, developers, and users can maintain a constant pace indefinitely.
- Strongly disagree
- Neutral
- Strongly agree
Quality
Principle 9. We pay continuous attention to technical excellence and good design to enhance agility.
- Strongly disagree
- Neutral
- Strongly agree
Simplicity
Principle 10. We embrace simplicity – the art of maximizing the amount of work not done.
- Strongly disagree
- Neutral
- Strongly agree
Self-Organization
Principle 11. The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge because we are a self-organizing team.
- Strongly disagree
- Neutral
- Strongly agree
Continuous Improvement
Principle 12. At regular intervals, our team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts our behavior accordingly.
- Strongly disagree
- Neutral
- Strongly agree
When to use this health check
- In a retrospective, when your team wants to check its habits against the principles it signed up to.
- When a new team forms and needs a shared idea of what working in an agile way means day to day.
- Every quarter, to track whether practices are drifting toward or away from the 12 principles.
- After a big process change, to check whether the new way of working still honors the principles.
Tips & tricks
- Run it before a retro and put the two or three lowest-scoring principles on the agenda.
- Repeat it each quarter so you can see trends and call out the principles that improved.
- Keep responses anonymous so people rate what actually happens, not what the team aspires to.
- Compare the principles your team rates highest with those it rates lowest. The gap between them usually leads to the most useful discussion.
- Pair each low-scoring principle with one small experiment to try in the next sprint.