I didn't mean it as a straw-man criticism, just an observation that scrum is very rigid and prescriptive; it's all about the what and the how instead the why.

I didn't mean it as a straw-man criticism, just an observation that scrum is very rigid and prescriptive; it's all about the what and the how instead the why. I'm a big believer in trying to persuade people to keep feedback loops short, make teams small and cross-functional, and to design/code/test/ship in the smallest increments possible. At this point, calling an approach agile/scrum/xp carries a lot of baggage. If people don't get the why (e.g. the team isn't small and cross-functional, and people aren't working on tiny increments) it kind of doesn't matter if you get everyone in the room at the same time every day.