alt Hacker NewsBut that isn't evidence that the method works. If you're a native tribe, that has an ancient traditional rain dance, it is invoked whenever there is a drought. Sometimes it rains shortly after the dance is performed. But if it doesn't rain, it's not proof that you danced poorly, it's evidence that you didn't understand the situation fully or properly. The instructions or "wisdom" you relied on, didn't actually capture something useful.
My evidence is that I was on a team that was not overly controlled by management and had clever people in it without any instant attitudes of rejection so they adapted to it. We produced updates bi-weekly and we had a huge backlog of stupid features which we were never going to get round to - we were able to get the important things done and it was one of the best feelings I've ever had about work.
Since then I've been on teams with any number of pathologies. From developers it is sometimes the desired to be special - those ones who want to work on their bit of the code and not let anyone else touch it. From managers it's things like forcing the way stories are split so that they're always too large and can never fit into a sprint - because they think that everything must be a "user visible change". Management types also sit in retrospectives and use them to crap on everyone. Product managers demand features which they don't know will really interest customers and are inflexible about them - they want "everything" just in case and that delays the work and deletes any chance of a feedback loop.
The good agile feeling came from being able to have control and be successful. When it's messed up, you're out of control and cannot avert disasters. Whatever method you want to call it, I think we need to feel we're in control enough to succeed.