Agile analysis was born out of a need in the late 1990s to overcome the burden of the available “heavy” software development tools, methods and ways of thinking. The current development methods were characterized as being heavily regulated, regimented and micromanaged project styles by some of the forward thinking developers of the time. “Agile methodologies attempt to capture and use the dynamics of change inherent in software development in the development process itself rather than resisting the ever-present and quickly changing environment.” (Erickson, 2005) “Agile methods that seek to address the challenges in such dynamic contexts have gained much interest among practitioners and researchers. Many agile methods advocate the development of code without waiting for formal requirements analysis and design phases.” (Cao 2009)

    The winter of 2001 would forever change the landscape of the software development world. Nestled in Little Cottonwood Canyon located in the Wasatch-Cache National Forest of Utah is the ski resort of Snowbird. This resort was the destination for the following 17 software developers: Kent Beck, Mike Beedle, Arie van Bennekum, Alistair Cockburn, Ward Cunningham, Martin Fowler, James Grenning, Jim Highsmith, Andrew Hunt, Ron Jeffries, Jon Kern, Brian Marick, Robert C. Martin, Stephen J. Mellor, Ken Schwaber, Jeff Sutherland and Dave Thomas.

    This group of independent thinkers came together to discuss the current state of lightweight development methods. “Representatives from Extreme Programming, SCRUM, DSDM, Adaptive Software Development, Crystal, Feature-Driven Development, Pragmatic Programming, and others sympathetic to the need for an alternative to documentation driven, heavyweight software development processes convened.” (Highsmith, 2001)

    This group published the “Manifesto for Agile Software Development” at the culmination of the meeting in Snowbird, Utah. The four founding values are (1) individuals and human interactions over processes and tools, (2) working software over comprehensive documentation, (3) customer collaboration over contract negotiation, and (4) responding to change over following a plan. (Unknown, 2001) In order to foster the growth of this new way of looking at analysis, several of the members formed the Agile Alliance, a non-profit organization organized to promote the development of software based on the Manifesto’s 12 guiding principles, as defined below.