The Agile Manifesto: A Historic Turning Point
In February 2001, a group of software developers met in Snowbird, Utah, and crafted what would become a watershed moment in the history of software development; the Agile Manifesto. With its emphasis on individuals and interactions, working software, customer collaboration, and responsiveness to change, it captured the spirit of a community disillusioned by heavyweight, plan-driven processes. It was fresh. It was radical. It sparked a revolution.
But over two decades later, we must acknowledge a simple truth: the Agile Manifesto is now a historic document. Its principles still resonate, but its context no longer fits the complexities of modern software delivery. Agile has been institutionalised, even commodified. In some cases, the values that once fuelled rapid iteration and customer focus are now buried beneath layers of process, tooling, and certification.
Outcome Over Output: Rewriting the Rules of Success
For too long, teams have been measured by what they produce - lines of code written, features shipped, story points completed. These are outputs. They’re easy to count, but they say nothing about whether we’re creating value.
Modern teams know better. The true measure of success lies in outcomes, as in what changes as a result of what we build. Are we solving the right problems? Are we improving lives, removing friction, enabling flow?
This isn’t just a semantic shift. It’s a philosophical one. Outputs belong to a production mindset. Outcomes belong to a product mindset.
The Art of Failure: Learning as a Core Competency
In a fast-moving, highly uncertain environment, failure isn’t just inevitable it’s essential. But not all failure is equal. We don’t celebrate recklessness. We celebrate learning, the kind that comes from structured experiments, from hypothesis-driven development, from asking "What if we're wrong?" early and often.
The best teams don’t just tolerate failure. They architect for it. They create environments where it’s safe to test bold ideas, kill bad ones quickly, and evolve rapidly based on real-world feedback.
Modern product development is a creative discipline. And like all creative disciplines, it thrives not on rigid adherence to process, but on cycles of exploration, expression, and refinement.
Towards a Product Manifesto: A Call for Alignment
We live in a world of cross-functional collaboration. Product managers, designers, engineers, data scientists, marketers meaning today’s product teams are multidisciplinary by default. But too often, we’re still working from separate playbooks.
What we need is a new unifying narrative, a Product Manifesto that reflects how value is created together, not in silos. One that doesn’t replace the Agile Manifesto, but succeeds it. Builds on it. Extends it.
A Product Manifesto for modern teams might prioritise:
- Shared outcomes over siloed goals
- Evidence over intuition
- Flow over velocity
- Sustainable pace over continuous hustle
- System thinking over narrow optimisation
- Problem framing over premature solutions
Such a manifesto wouldn’t belong to a single discipline. It would belong to the team, a shared compass for navigating ambiguity, aligning decisions, and building truly meaningful products.
Conclusion: Reimagining the Future Together
We don’t need to throw out everything that came before. But we do need to evolve. The challenges we face now such as AI, complexity, rapid market shifts, systemic risk demand a broader, more adaptive framework.
It’s time to move from Agile to Aligned.
It’s time for a Product Manifesto.
