If the Agile Manifesto Values were updated for 2026
For reflection purposes only, one might wonder what a comparable emphasis could look like in 2026.
People Empowerment Improvement over Individuals and Interactions over Processes and Tools
Value Improvement over Working Product over Comprehensive Documentation
Insight Improvement over Customer Collaboration over Contract Negotiation
Capability Improvement over Responding to Change over Following a Plan
In a nutshell
Short- to long-term Work Climate, Learning, Outcomes, and Impact over Outputs
over Activities and ‘Resources’
Would you bother? If you did propose new wording, what would you propose? Is it time to move on?
Being Bold
Whatever approach is taken, teams and organizations need to be bold like a salmon swimming upstream.
Every current, rock, and predator opposes its journey, but it pushes forward anyway. It doesn't ignore the obstacles—it feels their full force—but continues driven by a purpose that outweighs the guaranteed resistance.
For example:
•Demonstrating urgency around blocker/impediment removal, dependency removal/management
•Finding ways together to get the most out of AI-powered prototyping and development, in a professional way
•Working beyond the job title; everyone is a value engineer
Behaviors
Acknowledge Obstacles – Face resistance head-on, don't deny reality
Stay Mission-Driven – Let your mission outweigh the difficulty
Persist Through Resistance – Keep moving when others would quit
Commit Fully – No half-measures when the stakes are high
Find Strength in Struggle – Use opposition as fuel
Trust Your Path – Believe in the journey even when it's unclear
Doing More Than The Minimum To Achieve the Maximum – minimum work and maximum creativity to attain desired outcomes
But Also Knowing When To Quit - Grit is overrated
Conventions (courtesy of Tom Gilb, known as the grandfather of Agile)
People Empowerment Improvement
Specific empowerment (time, experiments, money, motivation) of professionals to seek improved work processes and tools: defined as ‘improvement in desired levels of any stakeholder value set, or costs set’ (such as Usability, Maintainability, Security, Effectiveness, Implementation Cost).
Short Version: Delegated change.
NOTE: ‘ over Individuals and Interactions, over Processes and Tools ’: these are, as important as they are as parts of our disciplines, simultaneously vague, and ‘just some of the relevant considerations’. They do not deserve to demand major focus alone.
Value Improvement
Numerically measured sustained improvement, in any specified stakeholder-valued set of Value ideas (defined by a Scale of Measure) for the planning targets (like products, services, and organizational capability), in the direction of agreed and committed levels of the values, within specified constraints (like legal, resources).
Short Version: Real stakeholder needs satisfaction.
NOTE: ‘over Working Product over Comprehensive Documentation’
These are two narrow aspects of even IT systems, not to mention that they are not very relevant in many other types of systems. ‘Working Product, ’assume it refers to bug-free code with correct functionality. But this ‘Working Product’ ignores and certainly does not explicitly define or state things like qualities (security, usability, maintainability, etc.), performance, constraints, operational resources, and product competitiveness.
The ‘Comprehensive Documentation’
The ‘Comprehensive Documentation’ is again a narrow and badly (‘Undefined’ really) concept. Perhaps it was a reaction to overly bureaucratic processes, especially in government and military projects, and to the unconditional demand for both planning documentation (requirements, design) and operational documentation (training, operations manuals). The reaction is particularly obsolete in 2026 with AI and evolutionary Value Improvement methods, where rapid, small-cycle feedback replaces documentation for review, approval, and contracting.
The Contract Documentation
The contract documentation can be revised to replace the very bad idea of ‘detailed specification of the detailed design of the system’ and instead cite and focus on the core functionality, the system's quality and value aspects quantified, and the resources expected and allocated. Detailed design up front is often a very bad idea, since for large and complicated systems, product teams need to be able to adjust the design (like IBM Space and Military Cleanroom method did successfully, always on time and under budget) [Cleanroom, Mills].
Insight Improvement
The continuous, cumulative life-cycle understanding of all prioritized planning objects, especially ‘critical’ factors such as stakeholders, their multiple values, people, effort, time, available ‘resources,’ constraints, and design solution implementation attributes (qualities and costs).
Short Version: Dynamic knowledge of the system and environment state
NOTE: ‘Customer Collaboration over Contract Negotiation’, while important, is merely 2 of a very large number of real critical considerations for the life-cycle success of a system. So, it is distracting and narrow to make them the central ideas.
Capability Improvement
Capability Improvement means a set of specified, prioritized, defined, quantitative, agreed ‘official’ improvements in stakeholder-desired values, and in various resources (opex, time, staff), which are achieved within any defined official constraints (like legal, cultural, money, time, fairness).
This can apply to any improvement target, such as product {software, tests, hardware, data, teams, markets}, and process, {like: organization, individuals, AI Bots}.
Short Version: Critical multiple values, sustainably improved.
NOTE: The earlier Manifesto ideas, “Responding to Change over Following a Plan”, are related to a couple of potential, but not necessary, means for capability improvement. This is probably the effect of the times, the narrow (coder) culture, and their understandable desire to avoid following bad plans and designs.
Team Vision
A written artifact (like requirements or objectives) stating the desired or committed future (defined timeframe or deadline) state (values, resources, constraints, functions) of a defined system (scope, stakeholders). The Team Vision Document is ideally written to communicate ‘perfectly,' meaning all team members understand the same vision.
Team Discipline
The degree of co-operation required to efficiently meet the formal value objectives of the team within their budgeted resources and constraints.
Team
A group of people and bots, working towards a defined common set of objectives, ideally within their budgeted resources and constraints.
Validated Learning
‘Learning’ is the analysis, conclusions, or hypotheses, and actions, which are a result of feedback data (like measurements from an EVO cycle ‘measure’ process, or complaints from stakeholders). The learning is validated, as a hypothesis, by the 'degree of future conformance with expected and estimated attributes' (values, resources) changes, as a result of the action taken on the learning.
Customer Discovery
Customer Discovery is any evidence you collect regarding potential or current customers (paying or free), and their needs and frustrations.
Stakeholder Discovery
Stakeholder Discovery is gaining improved knowledge of current or potential stakeholders, their needs and frustrations, whether or not they are addressed by your product, project, or system, or knowledge that can be ignored for the present. The Stakeholder Discovery purpose is to determine the adoption and prioritization of the corresponding requirements levels (Tolerable and Goal levels) and deadlines. We are particularly interested in identifying early on critical stakeholders (who can make or break your system) and their critical needs.
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The "BAU Tax": How to Plan a 12-Month Change Roadmap When You Can’t Stop the Daily Grind