[dragonwriter]

> Isn’t Agile more or less gradient descent (well, approximating the gradient for an undifferentiable function), applied to software development?

Lean is.

Agile is “It would be nice to do what works for your team in your particular challenges, not some pre-packaged one-size-fits-all processes sold by consultants. Now, here’s a bunch of pre-packaged one-size-fits-all processes, and an army of consultants selling them.”