A Matter of Principle

As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble. Ralph Waldo Emerson.

I read this and thought it was a very appropriate response to the kind of objections we often get to Agile methods.

Many people's first response to hearing about how Agile is done takes the form of a quibble with a specific method. But Agile isn't really about the details of any specific method - or indeed any specific methodology XP, Scrum, DSDM. It's more about the principles: iterative development rather than big-design up front; short iterations; working code; writing tests first and tracking velocity. That's it. All the methods come from these principles.