Social Traps of Agile methods

Social traps are situations within which individuals or groups face the prospect of adopting seemingly beneficial behaviors that have negative consequences over time or for a larger collective (Platt, 1973). While on the one hand, the Agile manifesto has been welcomed by many in the software developer community who often perceived formal processes as management generated inefficiency that gets in the way of productivity (Anderson, 2005). On the other hand proponents of formal plan-driven approaches argue that in spite of the lofty ideals and claims made, Agile development only postpone costs for the developing organization. Following the threads of this debate through a review of extant literature this conceptual study suggests that there is a real risk of developers using Agile methods falling into "social trap' of compromising the longterm goals for short-term gains.