Agile Values and Principles
What to Know
Candidates must be able to map behaviors and decisions back to the four value statements and twelve principles. The values are comparative, not absolute: working software is valued over comprehensive documentation, but documentation is not forbidden. Questions often present a scenario and ask which value or principle is being honored or violated.
Prioritize: individuals and interactions over processes and tools; working software over comprehensive documentation; customer collaboration over contract negotiation; responding to change over following a plan. For principles, focus on early and continuous delivery, welcoming changing requirements, frequent delivery, business-people collaboration, motivated individuals, face-to-face communication, working software as the primary measure of progress, sustainable pace, technical excellence, simplicity, self-organizing teams, and regular reflection on how to become more effective.
Traps
- "Agile means no planning/no documentation." False. The values describe relative emphasis, not elimination.
- Treating the values as a checklist. A team that does daily standups but never delivers working software is not Agile.
- Confusing the four values with the twelve principles. If a question asks for a value, choose among the four comparative statements.
- "Sustainable pace" misread as merely work-life balance; it also means the pace is maintainable indefinitely by sponsors, developers, and users.
- Simplicity is "maximizing the work not done," not minimal effort.
Rule of Thumb
When a scenario pits a plan/process/document against a conversation/deliverable/adaptation, ask: what does the Agile value say is more valuable here? Then check whether the answer preserves the other side rather than eliminating it.
Worked Example
A customer wants to change requirements mid-sprint. The team says "the plan is fixed." The Agile response is to welcome the change in the next iteration and prioritize it with the customer - honoring responding to change over following a plan and customer collaboration, not abandoning the plan entirely.