http://www.infoq.com/news/2008/03/should-customer-embrace-agile

Having said that, attitude has more impact in an agile team. Instead of being a tool of the process, team members are expected to show more responsibility. Like I’ve said many times, agile is not a place for cowboys. Without a responsible attitude agile will certainly break down.

So attitude is a coin with two sides: it can be a major successfactor, but it can be a risk as well…

At that point getting rid of testing, code-quality, necessary documentation would be a bad idea. If deadline is over so be it.

At least you have delivered a partially complete good quality product because it was developed in slices. At least agile should let you raise the issue well in advance. I will be possible to continue if the deadline is made available. Yes no one needs incomplete products. So whats the solution? There may be no solution.

The problem lies in how you compute deadlines. You might like to compute deadlines based on velocity and revise it accordingly. But this may not always be possible. Deadlines may still be forced on a project based on financial and time constraints. And because velocity wont be known in advance the victim will always be scope. Unless there is a deadline that was luckily (experience?) appropriate.

I also liked Naresh’s conclusion that one needs courage and discipline to do agile. This is probably very important so that the team does not misuse the freedom.

Also wanted to add that velocity will be higher in agile due to the leanness so agile is more likely to deliver earlier.

However deadline convergence is all about proabblity.
The accuracy of a computed real deadline is higher only in later stages. And its possible the deadline will need to shift and its possible the deadline can\’t be moved.

That said the limitation of deadline being wrong is a problem for both waterfall and agile. In waterfall its much more a problem. In agile at least the client will not discover during UAT that he wanted something else.

Coming back to deadline everyone including the client is aware of the risk in imposing a deadline. Sometimes they are willing to change the deadline if they feel satisfied about the efforts that were put in. Its important to keep lax time without being unproductive. Otherwise the client would feel he is being taken for a ride. Hence the need for a mature, responsible, disciplined, professional team.