I recently came upon this posting by Jeff Sutherland in which he described the origins of the Agile Manifesto:
>Martin Fowler, who was on the XP founding team, went to the white board during a coffee break and said he was concerned that there was not agreement on anything except the word agile. Within 15 minutes the Agile Manifesto was on the white board. Value 2 and 4 were put there by XP founders. Value 3 was argued for by me, a Scrum founder. Value 1 was a general discussion of all present.
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When the other Signatories came back into the room, they looked at the board, Ward Cunningham said it was awesome, and none changed a word. We spent the afternoon writing the 12 principles behind the Manifesto.
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quora 
I asked Ward if this story matched his memory. It did.
He and about half of the group had left the room for a break. The others remained. Martin had guided the conversation, but did not feel that he was the author. The manifesto magically emerged from the discussion.
>Ward Cunningham said it was awesome
Of the seventeen participants, it was Ward that Jeff and others looked to for confirmation. The one person who hadn't been invited, but had challenged his way into the gathering.
What had Ward said? Something to the effect, "That's wonderful!" The feeling: delight.
In Ward, they recognized the one who, perhaps better than anyone else, understood the Agile Mindset. A mindset that emerged from his earliest experimentation with Smalltalk when pair programming with Kent Beck.
While some in that room may have had a personal agenda, Ward did not. His was the opinion that others could trust – a wisdom that held the truth of this nascent movement that they came to call Agile.
It is to understand that delight we explore the Essence of Agile, one that can transform others. One that emerges through Eureka Moments in Learning Cycles. One through which the creative spirit flows, that adaptive dynamic found in the Free Energy Principle where an increasing complex Meaning Matrix is continually constructed.
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