[jordanpg]

No, I've worked in places where it works just fine.

The point is that, at the end of the day, it boils down elaborate processes to break things up into two-week chunks of work. That's it. That's the bit I thought was a concise, excellent summary.

Sometimes, for certain flavors of apps and tech and teams, that model works splendidly. Sometimes, it is silly administrative window dressing that is completely disconnected from the reality of what the team is doing. In my experience, it's usually the latter -- and the teams work just fine _in spite_ of the fact that everyone is pretending they are doing "scrum" or "agile".

I'd say what is naive is the belief that such a closely scripted, narrowly defined workflow is a one-sized-fits-all solution to optimizing teams under all circumstances and contexts.

[engrsrce]

"Elaborate processes" and "closely scripted, narrowly defined workflow" aren't adjectives I'd ever use for agile done well. And I've been doing it since we were allowed to call it eXtreme Programming. There's lots of "Dark Scrum" out there. Sounds like those are your experiences. They're not mine.

[romanows]

Agile is the opposite of "closely scripted, narrowly defined workflow is a one-sized-fits-all solution to optimizing teams under all circumstances and contexts." You're thinking more of Scrum?