The missing ingredient in 99.9999% of "Agile" shops is developers having hand in the relationship. That's it. I realized a few weeks ago that I've been lucky

The missing ingredient in 99.9999% of "Agile" shops is developers having hand in the relationship. That's it. I realized a few weeks ago that I've been lucky to almost always work under other engineers, nearly my whole career. Magically I become a thousand times more persuasive and articulate! (I didn't, I just have an audience with better priors). One developer-stakeholder relationship to keep in mind is Google-consumer. When was the last time Google had to endure a call from you asking about "velocity?" ...never. And this is because Google has a zillion dollars and will continue on merrily if you die tomorrow. (Yes, Google has meme problems like killing own products, releasing too many things, etc. The point is that you are not an active impediment to their development cycle) The best way to Do Agile is to have engineers hold >50% voting stock in the company, and for the company to be in a position that it can say FU to any particular client. Actual agile is not rocket science, nor is it magic---you still have to make tradeoffs, test with users, etc. It's just that you're doing those things from an informed point of view, compared to the alternative where decisionmaking power rests with those incompetent to wield it. There is of course more to business than engineering. You also want >50% of the voting shares to be able to read an income statement, (and, in small-enough businesses, to understand the value-add of accounting at all!) and whatever metrics keep the lights on (CAC, etc). Yes, to effectively manage complex businesses turns out to be complex!