What is Agile Alliance and What Does it Do?
Agile Alliance is a global non-profit membership organization founded on the Manifesto for Agile Software Development. We support people and organizations who explore, apply, and expand Agile values, principles, and practices.
Our membership consists of a thriving and diverse community of more than 80,000 people who share those interests.
Both members and staff enable the Alliance to provide a global set of resources, events, and communities to help people reach their full potential and deliver innovative solutions like never before.
Agile Alliance undertakes a variety of activities to build an inclusive global community, advance the breadth and depth of Agile, and provide value to members. Those activities include the following:
- Conferences that bring the Agile community together face to face
- A website full of information about Agile and the Agile community
- Membership that provides access to valuable resources created by community members
- Initiatives that address specific areas of interest in the Agile Community and provide support for local community groups
The Origins of Agile Alliance
The group of seventeen people that gathered in Snowbird, Utah, February 11 – 13, 2001 and crafted the Manifesto for Agile Software Development referred to themselves as the Agile Alliance.
Later that year, some of the original authors as well as some additional people saw the benefit of a more permanent organization. As a result, they formed Agile Alliance as a nonprofit organization to disseminate information about Agile.
When Agile Alliance was created, all the work occurred through initiatives that ran independently, apart from quarterly oversight by its volunteer board. The showcase of the Alliance’s work has been its set of conferences focused on bringing the Agile community together to share ideas and experiences.
As the Agile community grew and Agile Alliance's activities expanded, the organization brought on staff. This move provided stability for the organization and support for the initiatives, which remain independent in nature to this day.
The original authors of the Manifesto for Agile Software Development view themselves as having “launched the ship” of Agile software development by writing the Agile Manifesto and starting Agile Alliance, but have been happy to let the ship sail and for leadership to spread far beyond the original authors.