Taking the name and vocabulary of a respected movement such as Agile, and actually following its practices, lets a program inherit the movement's reputation, so critics must argue against a proven approach.
Borderline: whether this move is justified depends on the situation, and only the person in it can judge.
An example
Forty adjusters at a property and casualty insurer were about to be reorganized into teams that owned whole claim types end to end, and the head of claims transformation expected resistance from regional managers who liked the old queues. She called the program Agile and meant it. Each team got its own prioritized backlog, a weekly review with two policyholders on video, and the right to change its own process. She asked two certified coaches from the IT department to audit the program against the practice every quarter, and she published their reports. When a regional manager objected at a town hall, she answered with the first audit, which listed two gaps and the dates for closing them. Handling times fell eleven percent in two quarters. The office consolidation she also wanted went to the executive committee as a separate proposal, with its own business case.
Why it works
The label imports the movement's accumulated reputation, so the program looks better than an unnamed reorganization would, and objecting to it starts to sound like objecting to a practice the audience already admires. Scrutiny pays less, since a critic must show that the program departs from the practice, which the published audits already check. Opposition also gets costlier, because the critic risks looking opposed to a respected way of working. It depends on a term the audience endorses and on the program really matching it; people who know the real practice are the test.
The thinking behind it
Pierre Bourdieu In Outline of a Theory of Practice (1972), symbolic capital is prestige that works as a resource because others recognize it as legitimate, and it can be converted into other resources. A program that takes the name of a respected movement draws on the movement's symbolic capital and converts it into support. The conversion holds only while the recognition holds, which is why the program must follow the practice its name promises.
George A. Akerlof Akerlof's The Market for "Lemons": Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism (1970) shows that when buyers cannot tell quality, they treat every offer as average, and good offers lose out. A movement label is a quality claim the audience cannot easily check, so hollow programs that borrow it drag down the honest ones. Independent audits by practitioners reduce the uncertainty, which is why publishing them lets a genuine program keep the label's value.
When it fits
Programs that genuinely adopt a known practice, such as Agile, lean, or customer-journey design, are the candidates. It takes the authority to put the practice's core elements in place, people who know it well enough to check you, and an audience that already holds the practice in some regard. If you plan to adopt the words and skip the disciplines, it does not fit.
How to use it well
Adopt the practice first and the name second. Decide which core elements you will implement and do them: team ownership, customer contact, the right to change the process, or whatever the practice requires. Invite people who know the real thing, certified practitioners inside or outside the company, to audit the program on a schedule, and publish what they find, gaps included. Keep any change the practice does not require, such as office closures or headcount cuts, as a separate decision with its own business case. When critics object, answer them with the audit and the dates for closing its gaps.
What it costs and where it backfires
Borrowed reputation comes with a borrowed standard. The practitioners who lend the label credibility will also check it, and every gap they find costs more than it would under a plain name. A label spent once on a hollow program loses its value for the next one. The line is where the words outrun the practice: once the label covers changes the practice does not involve, or critics are dismissed as anti-Agile instead of answered, the program is trading on a reputation it has not earned.
When it is used on you
Ask what the program does under each element of the practice it names: who sets priorities, who talks to customers, who can change the process. If the answers hold up, argue the merits of the specific change. If they do not, ask people who know the practice to compare it with the program in writing.