A 2005 manifesto extending Agile principles to project management, written by a group led by alistair-cockburn and jim-highsmith — both signatories of the original agile-manifesto at snowbird-meeting-2001. The declaration responds to the challenge that the original Agile Manifesto focused on development teams and practices but said little about project management as a discipline.
Content
The PM Declaration of Interdependence asserts six commitments for Agile project managers:
1. We increase return on investment by making continuous flow of value our focus 2. We deliver reliable results by engaging customers in frequent interactions and shared ownership 3. We expect uncertainty and manage for it through iterations, anticipation, and adaptation 4. We unleash creativity and innovation by recognizing that individuals are the ultimate source of value, and creating an environment where they can make a difference 5. We boost performance through group accountability for results and shared responsibility for team effectiveness 6. We improve effectiveness and reliability through situationally specific strategies, processes and practices
The framing is deliberately parallel to the agile-manifesto: a short statement of values that can serve as a touchstone for Agile project management practice.
Context and significance
By 2005, scrum's role structure — Product Owner, Scrum Master, Development Team — had begun to displace traditional project manager roles in Agile organizations. The PM Declaration was an attempt to articulate what Agile project management means when you can't simply drop the "project manager" role (as Scrum theoretically does) — particularly in large organizations and regulated industries.
jim-highsmith had been developing adaptive-software-development since the early 1990s and brought a project management perspective to Snowbird that was distinct from the development-team focus of XP. The PM Declaration extended that work.
Reception
The declaration has lower visibility in the Agile community than the original manifesto and did not achieve comparable adoption. It is more significant as a document of the 2005 moment — when the Agile community was grappling with how the manifesto's values applied to management roles — than as a direct influence on practice.
The signatories of the PM Declaration overlap significantly with the original snowbird-meeting-2001 attendees.
Gap
The exact list of signatories and the precise publication date (approximate: 2005) are not fully documented in standard references. The declaration is available at pmdoi.org (current availability unverified).