The notion that Agile Development can be successful without Project Planning and Controls is only true when the project is de minimis.
A de minimis project, means any variance in the cost, schedule, and technical performance of the deliverables has no impact on the success of the project.
Agile development in its pure form requires no cost, schedule, or technical performance adherence. Once these constraints are present on an actual project being paid for by someone expecting a tangible beneficial outcome, for an expected cost, on an expected date, a closed loop control system is needed.
The transformation to the spending of time and money guided by the customer's direction moves the accountability for Cost, Schedule, Performance from those spending other people's money (the development team) to those providing the money (the project management team).
Everything was going well on the Titanic up until the last 20 minutes.
