Why Agile Fails Because of Corporate Culture

Large corporations are increasingly longing to be like startups: Flat hierarchies and the absence of formal procedures result in unseen productivity; doing without restraining bureaucracy allows for remarkable speed, innovation, and creativity.

Speed, innovation, and creativity: It's exactly these things most corporations are desperately lacking. In turn, it's only logical for big companies to want to take a leaf out of the startups' book. Where the clumsy imitation of a start-up mentality fails or maybe isn't even an option, the magic word agile soon echoes through the aisles. Because you know, the competition is already successfully agile, every consultant can deliver ready-made, highly scaled agile wonders on demand in no time at all, and even the house and farm service provider has had experience with it for a long time, but simply wasn't asked about it until now. So "agile" gets written on the banner, swarms of self-proclaimed evangelists get unleashed onto the staff and off they go on a journey into a brighter future.