Yes, that's possible for product development in a startup (even necessary, because you don't know what you need to build), and in web dev, end user facing apps,...
For many other domains, the full incremental / Agile loop is not possible, and becomes disaster if it results in skipping upfront planning:
The counterparts you need to integrate with are often not done yet. Maybe the hardware is not finalized. The end user is years away. Maybe each test run is hugely expensive.
There is no MVP here, as in the system works as expected or it doesn't.
You cannot meaningfully iterate the core software running an MRI machine, a surgical system, financial clearing, pick-and-place machines, automatic rail protection, etc. towards correctness with the end user.
My startup is a hardware company where we are our own customer. You absolutely can iterate these kinds of projects instead of top-down waterfall planning based development. It just requires dog-fooding the product and using mockups or simulations for parts that haven’t been implemented yet.
For many other domains, the full incremental / Agile loop is not possible, and becomes disaster if it results in skipping upfront planning:
The counterparts you need to integrate with are often not done yet. Maybe the hardware is not finalized. The end user is years away. Maybe each test run is hugely expensive.
There is no MVP here, as in the system works as expected or it doesn't.
You cannot meaningfully iterate the core software running an MRI machine, a surgical system, financial clearing, pick-and-place machines, automatic rail protection, etc. towards correctness with the end user.