[city41]

But the reality is almost everyone who "does agile" has rigidly adopted scrum, xp, kanban, etc. That is the reality most of us face. Just because a group got together 14 years ago and created a hypothetical scenario that essentially no one follows doesn't seem all that relevant to me.

And at the same time, the fact that a good, adaptive team that figures out what works for them is what you and the original group deem to be "agile" simply reinforces that the whole thing is ridiculous to me. Why did we need a name and a manifesto for that?

The end reality is we have an entire industry built around that stupid manifesto. Sure, it's not what they wanted, but it's what we all got. We would have been better off without it.

[dragonwriter]

> And at the same time, the fact that a good, adaptive team that figures out what works for them is what you and the original group deem to be "agile" simply reinforces that the whole thing is ridiculous to me. Why did we need a name and a manifesto for that?

Because while there are lots of people who won't understand that with an explanation, and some people who get it intuitively and don't need an explanation even with all the noise from people selling one true way, there's also lots of people in the middle who benefit from people selling there one-size fits all approaches not being the only voice in the marketplace of ideas.

> The end reality is we have an entire industry built around that stupid manifesto

No, we have an industry that existed long before the manifesto built around selling canned, context-blind process and jumping on anything even mildly popular to sell it that, predictably, when the manifesto calling for exactly the opposite of what that industry sold became popular, jumped on that to sell exactly the same thing they'd always been selling.

> We would have been better off without it.

No, I think that there are lots of people who have learned something from the Agile Manifesto, writings actually addressing how to implement its principles that don't amount to context-blind process, and related movements (Lean software development, etc.) and applied the ideas to improve teams and make software in a better way.

Most developers -- before and after the manifesto -- work in places where management is operated with shallow knowledge and poor respect for their staff and buying whatever consultants are selling in terms of process, sure, but that's not the fault of the Agile Manifesto

[city41]

You do make some good points. Perhaps my frustration at the Agile Manifesto is misplaced. I'd still argue that the canned processes that emerged due to the creation of the Agile manifesto are amongst the worst ones available, but for sure I have no real proof for that other than my own personal experience.