I believe that Agile is a great tool to help development teams achieve more, improve, and reach their next level in effectiveness, productivity, or creativity. However, like any tool, it can be misused or misapplied. You can shoot yourself in the foot if you are not applying a certain level of discipline or hygiene.

Mike Griffiths posted a short and sweet article on this subject that he entitled Agile anti-patterns. He classifies those anti-patterns as follow:

1. Agile as a silver bullet
2. Agile as an excuse for no discipline
3. Agile without explanation
4. Shallow Feedback

With the Deepwater Horizon incident in the Gulf of Mexico, there never was that much interest from the public on how a well is being drilled in over 5,000 feet of water. The video below is a presentation given by some colleagues from Shell at the Aspen Ideas Festival.

The presentation describes the different processes that take place during drilling and the barriers that are inherent part of any well.

Make sure to listen to the Q&A session after the end of the presentation. It provides additional insight on this terrible incident.