The 80% Solution and Industry Pundits
http://martinfowler.com/bliki/RollerSkateImplementation.html
Who knew that Martin Fowler, of all people, would be into some of the same ideas that Mike Hugos and I have been evangelizing - the idea that getting something out there fast may be important than getting something out there that is perfect.
This is exactly the idea that Mike was thinking about when he wrote this: The 80% Solution . The aforementioned article (which is, by the way, the first result in google when you google for 'IT Agility'), describes a project that Mike and I engaged on over a year ago - where within a short 3 weeks, we put together a system that allows a major retailer to manage a large portion of it's supply chain. Does it do everything? Not in the least. But it does enough that our client has been convinced to retain us for further blitzes, where we have delivered new iterations that expand upon a core base of very maintainable code.
You can, in fact, do maintainability and the 30-day blitz at the same time. You would be surprised at what you can make happen when you are responsive, agile, and sensitive to the needs of the organization that you are working with.
The part that makes agile hard isn't programming for maintainability in short iteration projects, nor is it the focus that it requires - but most importantly, it is maintaining a responsiveness to the needs of the business while keeping the scope of the project realistic. And it is working with people who are motivated not just to do the work, but to do the work like their next gig depends on it - people who take ownership of the deliverables.
Part of being responsive to the business is realizing that the world is not going to wait two years for a "perfect" creation to be "unleashed to the world". Being able to allow the sponsor to see and use interim results is a key tenet of agile.