In a company that understands and embraces agile software practices, this works well. You demo small things that are done, and prototypes are understood as just mockups designed to drive future work. Alas not everyone in power gets it. In more egregious cases, I've been in adversarial environments where teams were pitted against each other to appear "more done." Obviously a recipe for failure. I'm fortunate enough to be able to be more selective in where I work now, and have the experience to drive the choice.
I've come to realised this, "true" agile is more like being funny and smart(not that I am either). If you have to tell people you are smart or funny, you probably are not. Ever noticed how smart people(the really clever ones) are just absurdly smart without walking around telling everyone "hey I'm smart", usually the nicer they are the more intelligent they are(yea you get exceptions), same with funny :)
I feel it goes double for "agile-processes" if you have to walk around and tell everyone (management or interviewees how agile your process is, it's probably not)
It feels like "agile" is such an overloaded word these days. In most settings it just means a specific workflow centered around Scrum or to a lesser extent Kanban. The only true difference from old school waterfall and month long specs is shorter iteration cycles. A "sprint" or "iteration" is still treated as a rigid block of work.
On the other hand if you have a look at the original Agile Manifesto[0] it is a different beast all together. It specifically seems to go against using set processes altogether and basically boils down to nurture organic communication, to adapt and focus on getting shit done.
I suppose the "agile" in the former sense is a compromise to edge closer to the latter, while still maintaining a familiar corporate structure.
That's...a great point, actually. The most humane (and incidentally, agile) workplaces I've met didn't mention agile much: "yeah, we do this and that, we just want to have a sane environment."
The places that went "we do all the agile incantations in the book, because that's the only way," well, those actually had a scrum-o-fall culture.
Yeah, but there's a big difference between working on a TV show that's meant to be a comedy where people are trying to be funny, and working on a TV show that's meant to be a drama that isn't a parody. Both might have the same "actual goal" of trying to get good ratings, but if you're trying to put jokes in the show that's meant to be dead serious because you mistakenly thought everyone in the writer's room was trying to be funny...
If you want to be working with a team trying to be funny, at some point you have to use the word "funny" and "comedy" to make sure you all are actually trying to do the same thing. And make sure the producers and show runners agree that it's a comedy you're making.
There's no greener grass on the other side.
I've been in the big consulting business, and sometimes you can't get a client to schedule a meeting for months, so you're flying blind, with absolutely no feedback.
And then we go into the typical cycle of "Lessons Learned" etc, because what you've developed is irrelevant to the client.
