> "being forced to support, but not allowed to fix"
IMO that's a super important point. Having accountability without control is probably the fastest way to burnout and dissatisfaction in my experience. It doesn't matter the amount of hours you put in, it doesn't matter how much vacation you have. It's the difference between a feeling of accomplishment vs the learned helplessness and Sisyphean feeling of endlessly pushing a stone uphill.
And productivity suffers the most. This situation negatively affects the whole system, naturally.
The real problem is too much power to management without accountability. If the team suffers due to management decisions, how about we yank the management first?
But also: There is often zero practical need for rushing things, or for having some complicated vanity feature. This way there is a lot of risk and accountability as far as the team is concerned, but there was nobody up the chain asking for it.
The game of Chinese Whispers of features (and deadlines!) is probably the most inefficient part of software development.
IMO that's a super important point. Having accountability without control is probably the fastest way to burnout and dissatisfaction in my experience. It doesn't matter the amount of hours you put in, it doesn't matter how much vacation you have. It's the difference between a feeling of accomplishment vs the learned helplessness and Sisyphean feeling of endlessly pushing a stone uphill.
And productivity suffers the most. This situation negatively affects the whole system, naturally.