Aaron Held, coworker at CIM, “A House With No Front Door Keeps you off the streets”:

Scrum and Agile are desinged to solve this by making it a team effort. So in Scrum it is not the “developers” that build this Dr Seuss house, but the team. I think this is why many people fear Scrum. There is no “justifiable failure”.

CIO.com: When Agile Projects Go Bad:

Agile development also depends upon the engagement of the sponsors or customers in the process. That’s a difficult transition for some, according to Cockburn. “It looked like for a while that we were pushing all the power down to the programmers, but in fact we were evening out the power and responsibilities. Everyone gets to feel awkward about that.” In some organizations, he says, programmers ignored their bosses and built whatever they wanted.

At the other extreme, programmers expected the bosses or managers or sponsors to tell them accurately what the priorities were–not something the managers were used to. “So you get a breakdown on both sides,” says Cockburn. “The sponsors aren’t used to being asked to show up and care about the project, even [about] the requirements. … They say ‘No, that’s what we hired you to do.'” The programmers respond, ‘We don’t know; we need you to help us figure it out,'” he adds. And the sponsors say, ‘We don’t have time. Work it out yourselves.'”

Scrum – when practiced as intended, makes it hard to for CYA measures in development, planning, or management. Aaron has a point. That’s scary to some I would think.