[bunderbunder]

I think this is where most organized agile implements tend to fail. There's a lot of jumping straight to the user stories and sprints and all that, and skipping over some of the more basic agile ideas, first. One of them is that any artifacts that aren't executable code and test cases is likely to be dead weight that is expensive but delivers almost no business value.

A good agile book will (IMO) even go so far as to straight out say that if you're in a situation where you can't avoid having that level of documentation and paperwork, whether it be due to contractual obligations or organizational culture, then most agile methodologies are probably going to intensify your overhead problems rather than reduce them.