I have heard some fascinating rebuttals during my years coaching agile. There are always reasons why people don’t want to change, learn or grow. This is one I heard recently:

Agile’s not going to solve all our problems.

It was never supposed to. Nothing can ever solve all your problems. That’s not what Agile was intended to do. Agile is simply a set of guiding principles to help build the right software better, faster, and with close collaboration between and concerned parties.

If dysfunction exists already, agile won’t solve it, but it can create an environment where it can be more easily identified and dealt with.

If personalities clash, agile isn’t going to magically get them to hug and work together well as besties. A set of clear engagement rules might help though.

If there’s a gulf between IT and business, agile doesn’t wave it’s wand and suddenly we’re all singing Kumbaya together. Organisational restructuring will be needed to fix those problems.

No-one said Agile is the panacea for world peace. Get real. Building software for real customers is tough work. Things will go wrong. What agile gives you is a mental framework with which to approach problems. You’re still going to have to fix them.