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In the past, building software felt a lot like constructing a building. There was a lot of discussion in advance, planning, organization. Now it feels a bit like making pottery. There's a few rough passes to get the general shape, then iterations to smooth things into the final thing.

I always thought this was designed to make agile advocates look like idiots. The best way to make a car is not to start with a scooter

No, I think this is pretty fair-- agile gives you the opportunity to stop at the scooter if that's all you need. The failure pattern is when people start to build the car by lashing two scooters together and adding seats - the scooter iteration wasn't designed to become a car, and fails at that job

the failure pattern of waterfall is winding up with a bunch of wheels you knew you'd need later but you ran out of money in the 19th month of a six month project and never built the car

I must have done it wrong. I have never tried to build a platform game by starting with pong