I don't like the pick-and-mix approach to agile practices (I'm talking about Extreme Programming and Scrum), especially in the name of pragmatism. What about the values and principles? They're kinda key to Agile. For me it's all or nothing. Fundamentally there needs to be an inculcation of values and principles into the organisation's culture and people. And all the practices need to be employed (preferably in one go) because they produce better results when they're used together. If you only select some practices, and ignore the value system and principles, then you're not giving Agile a fair chance of success. I've heard too many organisations say "we tried Agile and it didn't work". What they've actually done is bought a book, read it, and then selected some of the practices and expected the developers to just use them. No wonder Agile didn't work.
This half-arsed and gutless approach to agile methods doesn't do anyone any favours. It doesn't really help the organisation trying to adopt agile methods and it certainly doesn't do the Agile movement any good either.
If you're contemplating Agile, do it all and get an experienced coach to help you. If you can't or don't want to do it all, do me a favour and don't do any of it.
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