Measure how closely your team lives the twelve Agile Manifesto principles
Grounded in the twelve principles behind the Agile Manifesto, this assessment helps teams gauge how well their day-to-day practices reflect the values that make agile work. Each statement maps directly to one of the original principles — from continuous delivery and welcoming change to sustainable pace, technical excellence, and regular reflection. By rating their level of agreement across all twelve, teams surface where they are living the agile mindset and where habits have drifted from intent, sparking honest conversations about how to improve.
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
- During a retrospective when your team wants to reconnect with the core values of agile.
- When onboarding a new team to align on what working in an agile way really means.
- Periodically, to track how closely day-to-day practices reflect the twelve agile principles over time.
- After a significant process change to check whether your ways of working still honour agile principles.
Tips & tricks
- Run this check before a retro and use the lowest-scoring principles to set the agenda.
- Repeat the assessment each quarter to visualise trends and celebrate improvement.
- Encourage honest, anonymous responses so the results reflect reality rather than aspiration.
- Discuss the gap between principles your team rates high versus those it rates low — that contrast is where the richest conversations live.
- Pair each low-scoring principle with one small, concrete experiment to try in the next sprint.