I agree with you that a formalized methodology is required for you to start with agile, be it XP, Scrum, Kanban or whatever the flavor the team itself feels more comfortable doing.
What no one tells these teams is that the methodology/process itself should be flexible, should be allowed to change to accommodate the idiosyncrasies of their work environment. What I've noticed helping some small companies is that teams learn some framework and use that as their "agile" concept and then proceed to be overzealous of the process itself, completely forgetting the original manifesto.
What no one tells these teams is that the methodology/process itself should be flexible, should be allowed to change to accommodate the idiosyncrasies of their work environment. What I've noticed helping some small companies is that teams learn some framework and use that as their "agile" concept and then proceed to be overzealous of the process itself, completely forgetting the original manifesto.
Like always, it's a strange whisper game...