Asked by IBM in 1991 to create a new and modern methodology for the IBM Consulting Group, Dr. Alistair Cockburn started studying how teams succeed. His team was one of the few that succeeded with commercial object-technology projects in the mid-1990s. His book Surviving Object-Oriented Projects showed how they did that.

Continuing his research, including being special advisor to the Norwegian Central Bank in the late 1990s, Dr. Cockburn co-organized the event that changed the software industry, the writing of the Manifesto for Agile Software Development (http://agilemanifesto.org), generally just called the Agile Manifesto. He received his Dr. Philos. from the University of Oslo in 2003, the same year he organized the first Agile Development Conference.

Dr. Cockburn is considered the world’s leading expert on the requirements gathering and process description technique called “use cases”, with the best-selling book on the subject “Writing Effective Use Cases.” He created the widely used software design pattern “Hexagonal Architecture” (https://web.archive.org/web/20170606075805/http://alistair.cockburn.us/Hexagonal+architecture), in in passing, collected and documented dozens of project management patterns and strategies. His work these days is Organizational Psychology, studying ways to help organizations grow closer together.

Consolidating his studies in organizational psychology and re-uniting the agile movement, Dr. Cockburn created the Heart of Agile, which consists of only four words: Collaborate. Deliver. Reflect. Improve. (https://heartofagile.com). His current work is to help organizations of any type or specialty take advantage of what has been learned over the last decades.