mike-beedle, one of the seventeen signatories of the agile-manifesto and co-author of agile-software-development-with-scrum, was murdered on March 23, 2018 in Chicago, Illinois. He was 55 years old. He was stabbed during a robbery.
Context
mike-beedle was the youngest of the seventeen Snowbird signatories. He attended snowbird-meeting-2001 representing scrum alongside ken-schwaber and jeff-sutherland, and co-authored the first Scrum book with ken-schwaber. He was a longtime member of the Chicago technology community.
His death was a violent crime unrelated to his professional work. He was attacked while walking in Chicago and died from stab wounds. The killing was widely reported in the Agile and software development communities.
Significance
mike-beedle is the only manifesto signatory to have died by violence. His death was noted across the Agile community with tributes from fellow signatories and practitioners. The agile-manifesto website at agilemanifesto.org notes his death.
His intellectual contribution to the movement — particularly co-authoring the first Scrum book and bringing complex adaptive systems thinking to Scrum's foundations — is documented in agile-software-development-with-scrum and in his presence at snowbird-meeting-2001.