> You'd meet about what you were going to do, work on it, and come back a week or two later. Occasionally there would be informal check ins.

Planning meeting, ad hoc meeting doing the work then weekly/bi-weekly show and tells to show progress. Sounds like...some version of agile?

Remember agile and the XP movement that preceded it was invented by software makers, who had observed the pattern you describe and decided to be self-conscious about it.