> To expand on this a little -- members of larger organizations have neutralized a threat by making the language mean less than it used to.
I think that looking at it as threat neutralization is badly misleading. I don't think management saw agile as a threat and neutralized, I think (1) management saw it as something that was producing value that they wanted to harness and implement, but generally failed to understand, and (2) people selling to management recognized this demand, and slapped the valuable label on whatever they could package. No threat, all opportunity. But same net effect.
> Effective agile practice breaks down a barrier between people making decisions and people doing the work. That must feel like a threat if your position involves little more than politely instructing other people what to do.
Honestly, I think that that the subset of management that understands agile well enough that they could feel threatened by it if they couldn't find a way to profit from it is the same subset that understands how to let it happen and own the results. The one that would be threatened by it if they could understand it well enough don't.