By the 1990s, widespread dissatisfaction with the waterfall process had motivated several alternative software process models.

Extreme Programming, often abbreviated XP, was one of the more extreme alternatives. Named by analogy to extreme sports, self-consciously and unapologetically radical, Extreme Programming was more than a software process model; it was an ideology.

Many software developers found much to admire in Extreme Programming. Some, however, believing XP to be a little too extreme, proposed new software process models that retained many of the good ideas from Extreme Programming while backing away from some of its more radical prescriptions. These process models, including XP, have become known as agile software processes.

In February 2001, seventeen advocates of agile methods met in Utah to find common ground on which they could all agree. They called themselves the Agile Alliance, and they agreed upon the following Manifesto for Agile Software Development.