Mainly just before my Agile workshops and presentations, I’m hearing often this same thing:

“When you have a great group of people, you can achieve great results with any methodology. So, why bother learning Agile stuff?”

This would, on other hand, imply that individuals in a group who fail, simply suck just as much as their failures. So, if you have been a team member during such failure (as I have been multiple times), then YOU suck too big time.

But, what does really make someone excel? Are some people simply born failures? Of course not! In my opinion, nobody sucks at anything. Just-in-case you might wonder: I love to work with people with little experience. Lack of experience and knowledge does not contribute much in failures and it is solvable. I have first hand experience from different customers with some amazing guys and girls who improved so much and become real craftsman within a short time frame.
There are two reasons why teams fail:

1. Team members lack motivation to do their job well, they are not appreciated, challenged, goal is unclear or unattractive and they have not enough influence and therefore don’t feel responsible.
2. Environment in which team operates is full of impediments.