[wpietri]

I think your contempt here is not a bad default position, but I think you misapply it here.

I was involved in the movement before the term "Agile" existed. I agree it is now on average horseshit, and have been saying so a long time. [1] But I think that one of the things that hasn't been broadly incorporated what is mentioned here: vigorously pursuing faster feedback loops.

So many places are so top-down and plan driven that their corporate structures and corporate cultures just don't let them take advantage of release-early, release-often approaches. Done right, it is hugely powerful because you get to learn ASAP when you are wrong. But in so many places people essentially don't want to know that. They would rather lose months or years to bad plans and bad practices than seek out the kind of real-world feedback that lets them know when something is wrong. People would rather feel smart and look smart than take the hit and learn from enough mistakes that they become actually smart.

Indeed, I think the reason that so much "Agile" is horseshit is that people reject the most important Agile changes such that they can keep on believing they're doing just great. They just don't want their process rub their noses in the fact that however fast they're going, it's not in the right direction.

[1] e.g., from 2011: https://williampietri.com/writing/2011/agiles-second-chasm-a...