Agile Development - The People Factor

Introduction

A friend and work colleague of mine, John Rusk, recently wrote an article about Agile Development which set me to thinking.

There is plenty of anecdotal evidence that projects making good use of Agile methodologies tend to succeed. Moreover, while there are projects using agile methods that fail, the proportion of those seems to be lower than the industry as a whole.

Why is that?

Is it just that the Agile Methodologies themselves are so much better than what we as an industry have done in the past, or is there another factor?

I believe that there is another factor that directly contributes to the success of Agile projects - the people themselves. Let me explain.