Lessons of Waterfall

No thinking person did Waterfall the way it was described in the literature written by the "Big Process" gatekeepers. Rather, they did what was appropriate to the problem at hand and then did the minimal amount of Waterfall waggle dancing needed to keep the gatekeepers off their back. Unfortunately this had the side affect of making both the gatekeepers and the management hierarchy think that their process was working, and the whole Big Process industry managed to perpetuate itself for well over 20 years. Until Extreme Programming came along, made a lot of noise about being different, and then through their "one right way" dogma managed to continue the charade, just with a different set of gatekeepers cashing in.