...with a cliff on either side...

"On the left is cowboy coding, aka hack-and-slash, aka "lost in the woods" (LITW if you need an XTLA). On the right is "plan driven". Agile is in the middle somewhere.

Actually, agile is really up a bit. There are two separate dimensions in play here, discipline and flux (see Agile Software Development: The Cooperative Game, 2nd ed.). Cowboy aka Lost in the Woods development is high in flux and low in discipline, plan driven development is low in flux and high in discipline. Agile development is moderate to high in flux, and moderate to high in discipline (for example, Crystal is moderate in discipline and high in flux, XPv1 is high in flux, high in discipline).

The point is that agile is (can be) the "middle-way". Groups fail when trying to implement agile because they either end up doing "lost in the woods" (absence-of-)practices, or plan-driven practices. Neither is right.

I was asked to name a Letterman-type top-10 list of ways projects fail in trying to be agile, and I found that my answers were mostly of the variety: "If you are straying to the left (LITW), the symptoms are these; if you are straying to the right (PDD), the symptoms are these.""

Agile development as the middle way with a cliff on either side (Alistair Cockburn)