What would you call this type of Agile?

"gedb01" <[email protected]> Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:25:34 -0000
Newsgroups gmane.comp.programming.language-of-the-year
Message-ID <[email protected]>
This post relates somebody's experience of a company that embraces 'Agile':  http://www.cfwhisperer.com/post.cfm/thinking-of-agile-xp-please-read-this-first

Personally, I would dismiss what he has to say if I hadn't encountered the same issues on projects that claimed to be 'Agile'.  Management were keen to embrace Agile, but what was done was in fact what they were doing was almost, but not quite, exactly the opposite of what Agile is.

In particular the following statement rang true:

          "It's a great model for building fiefdoms in a 
           corporation and employ busy programmers;"

I've seen somebody build a very successful fiefdom within one company while claiming to be Agile.  Freed from all the usual checks and balances they served themselves well while causing terrible pain for the customer.

Anyway, practitioners of Lean face a similar problem and one blogger has created a phrase for it: LAME - Lean As Misguidedly Executed.

You can read the full post here.  The problems faced by Lean are recongisably as those faced by Agile.  Lean is used as an excuse to cut costs fast and Agile is used as an excuse to churn out bad code.

http://www.leanblog.org/2009/11/leanies-of-world-unite.html

I like the term LAME, and I was trying to think of one for what those claiming to be Agile are doing.

It seems to me that this Not-Agile is now biggest enemey of Agile.  Many Agilists still hold Waterfall in there sights, while those who abuse the Agile banner discredit everything they have worked for.

How can we expose the fakes and avoid being tarred by their brush?