Sprints, story points, and daily standups are now considered essential parts of software development, but they actually started as workarounds. Agile methods were created to address slow, expensive, and unpredictable software projects. When long-term plans kept falling apart as new challenges came up, teams moved to more flexible, step-by-step approaches.

AI has changed development. Now, teams can launch production apps in weeks instead of months. This shift makes upfront planning matter again. I think AI-assisted development is bringing back Waterfall ideas, even though they used to get a bad rap. My team built a production Android app in about a month, and we did it without Scrum, sprints, story points, or retros. I'll go through Scrum's six big promises: predictable delivery, early feedback, adaptability, risk reduction, visibility, and sustainable pace. I'll talk about whether we lost these by skipping process, got them anyway by working fast, or never needed them at this speed.