Agile methods ask practitioners to think, and frankly, that‘s a hard sell. It is far more comfortable to simply follow what rules are given and claim you’re “doing it by the book.” It’s easy, it’s safe from ridicule or recrimination; you won’t get fired for it. While we might publicly decry the narrow confines of a set of rules, there is safety and comfort there. But of course, to be agile – or effective – isn’t about comfort […].
And if you only pick a handful of rules that you feel like following, and ignore the hard ones, then you’ve got it made! You are ”doing agile” if anyone asks, and you can focus your energy on enforcing a small set of largely useless rules. Everyone feels better. Until it’s time to actually ship something.
Source: Andy Hunt, “The Failure of Agile”, http://blog.toolshed.com/2015/05/the-failure-of-agile.html