> "Agile" or any methodology was a bit make-work, to fill a role that we can report on the specific progress of small things.
Agile isn't a methodology, and most methodologies described as Agile eschew formal minutiae.
The problem is, of course, that methodologies, of whatever origin, are, in practice, subject to top-down, non-Agile modification to suit the taste of managers who thrive of formalized minutiae, and, also, the starting point of methodologies for many shops isn't the original description by Agile practitioners who developed them while delivering superlative value but customized versions crafted by and marketed alongside consultants whose jobs are largely telling command-and-control-oriented managers what they want to hear.