<story><title>Hard deadlines are not user-first</title><url>http://jatins.gitlab.io/me/why-deadline/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ozmbie</author><text>In my experience when people focus too much on sprint deadlines, they miss the purpose of sprints.&lt;p&gt;Timed sprints exist not for the benefits of managers, but for the benefit of developers. They exist so that the development team has a shield against managers making last-minute decisions and changing priorities without notice.&lt;p&gt;If the focus and discussion is regularly on short term deadlines, then the developers are not driving the process, the managers are. It means that sprints are seen as a management methodology and not a development methodology. And then everyone has a hard time.&lt;p&gt;Managers who think this way know they’re not “allowed” to make mid-sprint changes so instead they focus on the end&amp;#x2F;deadline.&lt;p&gt;The managers should be spending their energy supporting the team and figuring out what the priorities are for the next sprint(s). If they’re spending their mental energy on deadlines then they’re doing everyone involved a disservice.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>strictfp</author><text>Sprints exist so that both management and devs can realize that there is more work than there is time. It forces devs to be focused and scope their work. It forces management to prioritize and scope down as well.&lt;p&gt;Keeping the deadline of the sprints is supposed to force management and devs to agree on reasonable scopes, such that the output of the dev team becomes predictable with time.&lt;p&gt;This enables devs to get trusted by management, breaking the poisonous relationship.</text></comment>
<story><title>Hard deadlines are not user-first</title><url>http://jatins.gitlab.io/me/why-deadline/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ozmbie</author><text>In my experience when people focus too much on sprint deadlines, they miss the purpose of sprints.&lt;p&gt;Timed sprints exist not for the benefits of managers, but for the benefit of developers. They exist so that the development team has a shield against managers making last-minute decisions and changing priorities without notice.&lt;p&gt;If the focus and discussion is regularly on short term deadlines, then the developers are not driving the process, the managers are. It means that sprints are seen as a management methodology and not a development methodology. And then everyone has a hard time.&lt;p&gt;Managers who think this way know they’re not “allowed” to make mid-sprint changes so instead they focus on the end&amp;#x2F;deadline.&lt;p&gt;The managers should be spending their energy supporting the team and figuring out what the priorities are for the next sprint(s). If they’re spending their mental energy on deadlines then they’re doing everyone involved a disservice.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>pjc50</author><text>&amp;gt; If the focus and discussion is regularly on short term deadlines, then the developers are not driving the process, the managers are. It means that sprints are seen as a management methodology and not a development methodology. And then everyone has a hard time.&lt;p&gt;Right. This is the thing that&amp;#x27;s nearly impossible to achieve in most places and why so many people hate Agile: because they&amp;#x27;re dealing with &amp;quot;imposed agile&amp;quot; where the managers are driving the process.</text></comment>