There is an implicit assumption that the world stops changing when the Agile-built product is delivered.
The argument for Agile over Waterfall is that the world and the requirements change while the product is being built. Agile actually accommodates this change (true). But the world doesn’t stop changing just because we delivered, so a post project ongoing development may need to be planned for.
More important than rate of learning is ‘are you learning the right thing’?
How did words from a 2-day meeting at a ski lodge, on principles for a new approach to building software become such gospel that they are now being used as principles to run whole corporations engaged in activities nothing to do with software? The Agile Manifesto principles are not even the best choice for all types software development.
This is a fascinating phenomenon worthy of study. At the very least it can confirm theories about diffusion of untested practices and fads. A generation from now, indiscriminate and inappropriate applications of the Agile Manifesto will be seen as something of a Tulip Mania. Or a YAF. Yet Another Fad.
