So like everything in life, it all comes down to management. If management doesn't buy in, it doesn't matter how many processes you put in place, they're the ones that either hold the keys to success or failure.
Except that Scrum added time-wasting extra stuff on top of the situation.
If management doesn't buy in and I can operate my own low-overhead, low-formalism workflow, then so be it. I suffer the badness of management, but I don't also pay time waster costs for a formalized process whose sole purpose of better facilitating productivity is categorically disallowed in the first place.
I personally, as a matter of experience and opinion, would take it further to say that certain properties of Agile / Scrum actually add fuel to the fire and allow management's already bad behavior to manifest in even worse ways. But even if someone doesn't agree with that, I think the point stands: why incur the overhead costs of Agile if the same outcomes happen because of mismanagement anyway?
No, I agree; that's why I've always thought of it as an amplifier for management. If you have good management that buys in, then everyone is more productive. If you have crappy management that doesn't, then they're given a tool to amplify the micromanaging and dispiriting aspects of the job.
