Agile's History: From Early Foundations to the Agile Manifesto and Beyond
21 February 2025 14:11
By Scott M. Graffius | Exceptional Agility AI
'Agile's History, Visualized' (as displayed on the iPad in the visual above) is available here
Introduction
Some consider the release of the Agile Manifesto in 2001 as the starting point for Agile. However, Agile's origins—rooted in iterative and incremental approaches—date back to the 1950s. This article outlines key milestones in Agile's history, from early foundations to the Agile Manifesto and beyond.
Agile Through the Decades
The 1950s
The 1960s
The 1970s
The 1980s
The 1990s
The 2000s
The 2010s to Present
Conclusion
This article highlighted major milestones in Agile's advancement. If you'd like to see the content in the form of an infographic, 'Agile's History, Visualized' is available here.
Read on for:
About Scott M. Graffius
Scott M. Graffius is a high impact and globally recognized AI, advanced technology, agile, project management, and social media researcher, thought leader, author, and public speaker.
He has generated more than USD $1.9 billion in business value for organizations served, including Fortune 500 companies across diverse industries such as technology, entertainment, financial services, social media, healthcare, government, and more.
Graffius leads the professional services firm Exceptional PPM and PMO Solutions, along with its subsidiary Exceptional Agility. These consultancies offer strategic and tactical advisory, training, embedded talent, and consulting services to public, private, and government sectors. They help organizations enhance their capabilities and results in agile, project management, program management, portfolio management, and PMO leadership, supporting innovation and driving competitive advantage. Graffius is a former vice president of project management with a publicly traded provider of diverse consumer products and services over the Internet. Before that, he ran and supervised the delivery of projects and programs in public and private organizations with businesses ranging from e-commerce to advanced technology products and services, retail, manufacturing, entertainment, and more. He has experience with consumer, business, reseller, government, and international markets.
He is the author of two award-winning books. His first book, Agile Scrum (ISBN-13: 9781533370242), received 17 awards. His second book is Agile Transformation (ISBN-13: 9781072447962). BookAuthority named it one of the best Scrum books of all time.
Organizations around the world invite Graffius to speak on AI, agile, project management leadership, high performance teams, and more. He has developed and delivered unique and compelling talks and workshops. To date, Graffius has delivered 91 sessions across 25 countries. With an average rating of 4.81 (on a scale of 1-5), sessions are highly valued.
Prominent businesses, professional associations, government agencies, and universities have featured Graffius and his work including content from his books, talks, workshops, and more. Select examples include: Adobe, Bayer, Boston University, Broadcom, Cisco, DevOps Institute, IEEE, Johns Hopkins University, Microsoft, Oracle, Project Management Institute, UC San Diego, US Department of Energy, US National Park Service, US Tennis Association, Yale University, and many others.
Graffius has a bachelor’s degree in psychology with a focus in Human Factors. He holds nine professional certifications:
He is an active member of the Scrum Alliance, the Project Management Institute (PMI), and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).
Visit https://ScottGraffius.com to learn more, and connect with Scott on:
About Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions
Shifting customer needs are common in today's marketplace. Businesses must be adaptive and responsive to change while delivering an exceptional customer experience to be competitive.
There are a variety of frameworks supporting the development of products and services, and most approaches fall into one of two broad categories: traditional or agile. Traditional practices such as waterfall engage sequential development, while agile involves iterative and incremental deliverables. Organizations are increasingly embracing agile to manage projects, and best meet their business needs of rapid response to change, fast delivery speed, and more.
With clear and easy to follow step-by-step instructions, Scott M. Graffius's award-winning Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions helps the reader:
Hailed by Literary Titan as “the book highlights the versatility of Scrum beautifully.”
Winner of 17 first place awards.
Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions is available in paperback and ebook/Kindle worldwide. Some links by country follow.
About Agile Transformation: A Brief Story of How an Entertainment Company Developed New Capabilities and Unlocked Business Agility to Thrive in an Era of Rapid Change
Thriving in today's marketplace frequently depends on making a transformation to become more agile. Those successful in the transition enjoy faster delivery speed and ROI, higher satisfaction, continuous improvement, and additional benefits.
Based on actual events, Agile Transformation: A Brief Story of How an Entertainment Company Developed New Capabilities and Unlocked Business Agility to Thrive in an Era of Rapid Change provides a quick (60-90 minute) read about a successful agile transformation at a multinational entertainment and media company, told from the author's perspective as an agile coach.
The award-winning book by Scott M. Graffius is available in paperback and ebook/Kindle worldwide. Some links by country follow.
About Exceptional Agility AI
Exceptional Agility AI empowers agile teams with AI-driven insights and automation—enhancing collaboration, accelerating innovation, and delivering exceptional value at every sprint.
How to Cite This Article
Graffius, Scott M. (2025, February 21). Agile's History: From Early Foundations to the Agile Manifesto and Beyond. Available at: https://exceptionalagility.com/blog/exceptional-agility-ai---agile's-history---infographic-2025-edition.html.
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
The DOI for this article is: 10.13140/RG.2.2.11260.45449
Copyright © Scott M. Graffius, Exceptional Agility—part of Exceptional PPM and PMO Solutions. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the express written permission of Scott M. Graffius/Exceptional PPM and PMO Solutions.
'Agile's History, Visualized' (as displayed on the iPad in the visual above) is available here
Introduction
Some consider the release of the Agile Manifesto in 2001 as the starting point for Agile. However, Agile's origins—rooted in iterative and incremental approaches—date back to the 1950s. This article outlines key milestones in Agile's history, from early foundations to the Agile Manifesto and beyond.
Agile Through the Decades
The 1950s
- 1957: IBM began utilizing incremental development in software projects.
- 1958: Software for Project Mercury, the United States’ first human spaceflight program, was developed in half-day iterations.
The 1960s
- 1968: IBM’s Harlan Mills advocated for staged, incremental software development with continuous user involvement.
The 1970s
- [Agile took a Disco Nap]
The 1980s
- 1980: Toyota introduced visual control, a predecessor to Agile’s information radiators.
- 1984: Leo Brodie described the concept of factoring, an early influence on code structuring.
- 1985: Tom Gilb introduced the Evolutionary Delivery Model, an alternative to the Waterfall methodology.
- 1986: The influential article "The New New Product Development Game" by Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka was published in the Harvard Business Review, laying the groundwork for Scrum.
- 1988: The timebox approach was central to DuPont’s Rapid Iterative Production Prototyping.
The 1990s
- 1990: Bill Opdyke coined the term refactoring, which became fundamental in Agile software development.
- 1991: James Martin described timeboxing and iterations, core components of Agile frameworks.
- 1993:Jim Coplien introduced the stand-up meeting pattern. Scrum was first used as a process by Jeff Sutherland, John Scumniotales, and Jeff McKenna at Easel Corporation.
- 1995: Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland co-presented Scrum.
- 1997: Ken Schwaber described the daily Scrum.
- 1998: Alistair Cockburn advocated working in increments. The Chrysler Goes to Extremes case study detailed Extreme Programming (XP) practices like self-chosen tasks, three-week iterations, and pair programming.
The 2000s
- 2000: Martin Fowler published an article defining continuous integration. Ken Schwaber introduced the burndown chart.
- 2001: Seventeen software development experts formulated the Manifesto for Agile Software Development, emphasizing individuals and interactions, working software, customer collaboration, and responding to change. Mary Poppendieck highlighted Agile’s similarities with Lean manufacturing. Alistair Cockburn coined the term information radiator.
- 2005: Mike Cohn’s Agile Estimating and Planning introduced techniques such as Planning Poker.
- 2008: Kane Mar formally described backlog grooming. Jeff Patton introduced story mapping.
- 2009: The concept of DevOps emerged from John Allspaw and Paul Hammond’s talk on 10+ daily deployments, while Patrick Debois coined the term.
The 2010s to Present
- 2010: Dean Leffingwell and Drew Jemilo introduced the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), designed for enterprise-level Agile adoption.
Conclusion
This article highlighted major milestones in Agile's advancement. If you'd like to see the content in the form of an infographic, 'Agile's History, Visualized' is available here.
Read on for:
- About Scott M. Graffius,
- About Exceptional Agility AI,
- How to Cite This Article,
- and more.
About Scott M. Graffius
Scott M. Graffius is a high impact and globally recognized AI, advanced technology, agile, project management, and social media researcher, thought leader, author, and public speaker.
He has generated more than USD $1.9 billion in business value for organizations served, including Fortune 500 companies across diverse industries such as technology, entertainment, financial services, social media, healthcare, government, and more.
Graffius leads the professional services firm Exceptional PPM and PMO Solutions, along with its subsidiary Exceptional Agility. These consultancies offer strategic and tactical advisory, training, embedded talent, and consulting services to public, private, and government sectors. They help organizations enhance their capabilities and results in agile, project management, program management, portfolio management, and PMO leadership, supporting innovation and driving competitive advantage. Graffius is a former vice president of project management with a publicly traded provider of diverse consumer products and services over the Internet. Before that, he ran and supervised the delivery of projects and programs in public and private organizations with businesses ranging from e-commerce to advanced technology products and services, retail, manufacturing, entertainment, and more. He has experience with consumer, business, reseller, government, and international markets.
He is the author of two award-winning books. His first book, Agile Scrum (ISBN-13: 9781533370242), received 17 awards. His second book is Agile Transformation (ISBN-13: 9781072447962). BookAuthority named it one of the best Scrum books of all time.
Organizations around the world invite Graffius to speak on AI, agile, project management leadership, high performance teams, and more. He has developed and delivered unique and compelling talks and workshops. To date, Graffius has delivered 91 sessions across 25 countries. With an average rating of 4.81 (on a scale of 1-5), sessions are highly valued.
Prominent businesses, professional associations, government agencies, and universities have featured Graffius and his work including content from his books, talks, workshops, and more. Select examples include: Adobe, Bayer, Boston University, Broadcom, Cisco, DevOps Institute, IEEE, Johns Hopkins University, Microsoft, Oracle, Project Management Institute, UC San Diego, US Department of Energy, US National Park Service, US Tennis Association, Yale University, and many others.
Graffius has a bachelor’s degree in psychology with a focus in Human Factors. He holds nine professional certifications:
- Certified SAFe 6 Agilist (SA),
- Certified Scrum Professional - ScrumMaster (CSP-SM),
- Certified Scrum Professional - Product Owner (CSP-PO),
- Certified ScrumMaster (CSM),
- Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO),
- Project Management Professional (PMP),
- Lean Six Sigma Green Belt (LSSGB), and
- IT Service Management Foundation (ITIL).
He is an active member of the Scrum Alliance, the Project Management Institute (PMI), and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).
Visit https://ScottGraffius.com to learn more, and connect with Scott on:
About Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions
Shifting customer needs are common in today's marketplace. Businesses must be adaptive and responsive to change while delivering an exceptional customer experience to be competitive.
There are a variety of frameworks supporting the development of products and services, and most approaches fall into one of two broad categories: traditional or agile. Traditional practices such as waterfall engage sequential development, while agile involves iterative and incremental deliverables. Organizations are increasingly embracing agile to manage projects, and best meet their business needs of rapid response to change, fast delivery speed, and more.
With clear and easy to follow step-by-step instructions, Scott M. Graffius's award-winning Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions helps the reader:
- Implement and use the most popular agile framework―Scrum;
- Deliver products in short cycles with rapid adaptation to change, fast time-to-market, and continuous improvement; and
- Support innovation and drive competitive advantage.
Hailed by Literary Titan as “the book highlights the versatility of Scrum beautifully.”
Winner of 17 first place awards.
Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions is available in paperback and ebook/Kindle worldwide. Some links by country follow.
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About Agile Transformation: A Brief Story of How an Entertainment Company Developed New Capabilities and Unlocked Business Agility to Thrive in an Era of Rapid Change
Thriving in today's marketplace frequently depends on making a transformation to become more agile. Those successful in the transition enjoy faster delivery speed and ROI, higher satisfaction, continuous improvement, and additional benefits.
Based on actual events, Agile Transformation: A Brief Story of How an Entertainment Company Developed New Capabilities and Unlocked Business Agility to Thrive in an Era of Rapid Change provides a quick (60-90 minute) read about a successful agile transformation at a multinational entertainment and media company, told from the author's perspective as an agile coach.
The award-winning book by Scott M. Graffius is available in paperback and ebook/Kindle worldwide. Some links by country follow.
- 🇦🇺 Australia
- 🇦🇹 Austria
- 🇧🇷 Brazil
- 🇨🇦 Canada
- 🇨🇿 Czech Republic
- 🇩🇰 Denmark
- 🇫🇮 Finland
- 🇫🇷 France
- 🇩🇪 Germany
- 🇬🇷 Greece
- 🇮🇳 India
- 🇮🇪 Ireland
- 🇯🇵 Japan
- 🇱🇺 Luxembourg
- 🇲🇽 Mexico
- 🇳🇱 Netherlands
- 🇳🇿 New Zealand
- 🇪🇸 Spain
- 🇸🇪 Sweden
- 🇨🇭 Switzerland
- 🇦🇪 United Arab Emirates
- 🇬🇧 United Kingdom
- 🇺🇸 United States
- 🌏 More countries
About Exceptional Agility AI
Exceptional Agility AI empowers agile teams with AI-driven insights and automation—enhancing collaboration, accelerating innovation, and delivering exceptional value at every sprint.
How to Cite This Article
Graffius, Scott M. (2025, February 21). Agile's History: From Early Foundations to the Agile Manifesto and Beyond. Available at: https://exceptionalagility.com/blog/exceptional-agility-ai---agile's-history---infographic-2025-edition.html.
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
The DOI for this article is: 10.13140/RG.2.2.11260.45449
Copyright © Scott M. Graffius, Exceptional Agility—part of Exceptional PPM and PMO Solutions. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the express written permission of Scott M. Graffius/Exceptional PPM and PMO Solutions.