From 1998-2000, I led what I can now identify as an Agile transformation of a software product company. Within a short time after my departure, the company was acquired, and the new management team succeeded in turning back the hands on the cultural clock to our pre-Agile days. The inevitable resulted. The company lost touch with the market. Product cycles lengthened, quality deteriorated, morale diminished, and revenue declined. Six years after I left the company, I was asked to come back as a consultant to attempt to restore the Agile "magic" (see the sidebar "Inspired by Failure").