While I think you're trying to be critical, you've actually hit on a key point in agile.
Agile is about principles, not procedures.(I speak of litte-a agile, not big-A agile). It also emphasizes people, not artifacts. Because of this, two things naturally occur: 1) Whether or not you are "doing" agile is a judgement call, not discoverable by a formal prof or checklist, and 2) agile is more like playing the piano than learning calculus. You don't learn it by watching a film about it or reading a book: you learn by doing it and getting better over time.
You can look at this as "moving the goalposts" if you like, or you can look at it as optimizing for each circumstance. I think realizing that there are no goalposts is one of the stages of actually getting it. (and there are many folks in the agile camp who have not gotten it yet)
Agile is about principles, not procedures.(I speak of litte-a agile, not big-A agile). It also emphasizes people, not artifacts. Because of this, two things naturally occur: 1) Whether or not you are "doing" agile is a judgement call, not discoverable by a formal prof or checklist, and 2) agile is more like playing the piano than learning calculus. You don't learn it by watching a film about it or reading a book: you learn by doing it and getting better over time.
You can look at this as "moving the goalposts" if you like, or you can look at it as optimizing for each circumstance. I think realizing that there are no goalposts is one of the stages of actually getting it. (and there are many folks in the agile camp who have not gotten it yet)