Your modern “agile” transition has been a bit of a nightmare. On top of all the work you normally do, you have extra meetings, extra practices, extra responsibilities, more pressure, less accomplishment, and no time to think whatsoever. Not feeling “empowered?” Is this what the first Scrum and XP teams did? And yet, there are people in the world who seem to be legitimately enjoying their experience. They are doing the same things you are doing: they have morning meetings, sprints, story-points (those who still estimate at all). Why do they like this? If “agile” methods are such well-defined processes, why don’t all the people who use them have the same experience? Tim and Ruud suggest you’ve been given a weak or dead strain of agile -- more like inoculation than enrichment. You don’t have to settle. If your company wants you to have an Agile team, get the real thing. Learn how to unencumber your team, empower people, and reach a higher level of development. Take agile back for yourself and your team.