Agile Manifesto

Let's spend some time understanding the history of Agile. This might be a good time to talk about Agile Manifesto....
In 2001, 17 established individuals met at Snowbird Ski resort in Utah to come up with a lightweight software development methodology as against the heavyweight tradition waterfall method. They came up with the Agile manifesto(1) that states, 
"We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value:

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools     
• Working software over comprehensive documentation   
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Responding to change over following a plan
  That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more."
  
  You can read complete history about the Manifesto at The Agile Manifesto(1)

More Agile characteristic..

Another important characteristic is Co-location. Agile puts tremendous emphasis on face to face communication. So normally all the team members are located in an open office space more like a bullpen. This is different than traditional cubical sitting arrangements. This facilitates easy communication within the team members. Normally, the managers would also have a spot in the same space (of course by the window .!) . In cases, when the members have to be in different physical locations, they use all the latest and greatest advancements in communication technologies.

Typically such a common area will have a bunch of desks, with a couple of drawers for the developers . There would be a few rooms for spike, scrums ( stay tuned for more about these in later blogs) purpose and executives offices in the corner. This makes it extremely easier  for anyone to walk into a director or VP's office ( don't push it too much though :P) in case of any issues or problems

p.s: It takes a while for everyone to get adjusted to this kind of set up, eventually the team resources see benefits of co-location ( I didn't say 'put up with' ... :P