[chiefalchemist]

> Also, Agile methodologies tend to assume you are in close contact with the customer, who can tell you what they actually want and decide how things should work.

Yes. Kinda :) But the issue isn't want. The friction is actual make-an-impact business needs.

It's easy to sit around a conference table and spitball wants. But trying to bin that person or group down to specifics as well as resolve disconnect and inconsistencies between the ideas and faces go blank.

Customers want the luxury to spit out wants without having to take the time to knuckle down and do the hard work of defining needs. They have a "you figure it out" attitude. That leads to assumptions. And assumptions lead to dysfunctional product / features, for which the engineers get blamed. Again.

Agile is a worthy solution to this problem, but when IT is treated as a service provider and not an equal partner the tool (i.e., agile) gets mutated to a point it's not truly agile anymore.