Dave Churchville has a pretty good response to Steve Yegge's rant on good agile vs. bad agile.
This line: "He warns of Agile proponents "being slippery" by taking credit for any good effects of an implementation, but explaining away bad effects as "you didn't do it right"." made me think.
Of all the problems "waterfall" (which is a bit of a straw man anyway I think, but let's use it for now anyway) methods has caused, people just tell you it's because you're not doing it right.
You didn't get all the requirements.
You didn't anticipate this change and plan for it with a flexible design.
You missed this on your test plan.
In short, "you're not doing it right."
Let's face it, if you're lucky enough to have a critical mass of good developers, testers, customers, and engineers, you can succeed with almost any process.
That is sort of the gist of what alistair cockburn talks about. His view is that process is not exactly irrelevant, but generally not a major factor in the success or failure of a project. Formal process can only really improve or retard the efficiency of the team.
Found the link: http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail175.html
Well worth listening to.
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