To Agile or not to Agile, that is the challenge

Last week I read one of Nicole Bellios articles on true Agile stories. I found this article and the comments very interesting and confirmed me the idea that I have on Agile.

Indeed, Agile has obvious advantages: ability to respond to changing requirements, collaboration with the stakeholder, team interaction. In my company, agile has also brought us more white boards in the rooms and work area :p. Agile is a MUST in some projects, and it proved the added value for the client and for us. Consequently, we have several agile success stories.

On the other hand, we also have a lot of successful projects that followed a classical process. Agile is not always the right answer. Agile does not fit well in all environments (and this is a postulate from Agile defenders). There are many ways to do agile. Or better, we can successfully apply Agile concepts to projects that are not conducted in a pure agile way: continuous integration, intensive tests, stand-up (even if we were sited) meetings etc.

Moreover, there are people thinking that Agile is focusing on team and result forgetting the main actors, the individuals. Not fully sticking with Agile is OK. Agile or not Agile, there are advantages and disadvantages, constraints and benefits, best practices and individuals beats processes and tools, the success of a project is made by motivated people.