[mattress]

I agree that Agile can be the middle ground, but it can also can be dangerous.

When my previous employer implemented "Agile" they payed what I imagine was tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars for an "agile framework's" consultants to come in and teach us how to agile correctly.

1.5 years after that I saw that our time was more micromanaged than before. We were told regularly we were "empowered" and to speak up when we had any doubts or anxiety or saw a problem with our plan, but when we did it we were either chastised or disregarded or in some cases convinced it wasn't an issue.

That and the entire development organization treating estimates as infallible. That was the worst. Being told to estimate as best you could because agile was about adapting to change. Then getting reamed for being wrong. I gave up pointing out all the double-speak (release dates are flexible! as long as it is done by the release date) going on in the "agile ceremonies" (2 day 4-hour Release planning meetings with all 30 dev teams in one room.)

I know it's just one org I'm speaking about, but after almost 3 years I don't know if their dev organization is any better off than when they were waterfall. Now I'm curious just how wide spread this particular issue is.