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Burnout

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The Agile Project Manager - Can Agile Teams get “Burned Out”?

My My, Hey Hey (Out Of The Blue)
My my, hey hey
Rock and roll is here to stay
It's better to burn out
Than to fade away
My my, hey hey.
--Neil Young

One of the core principles of agility is the notion of “sustainable pace”. It originated in the Extreme Programming community. Initially, in v1 of the XP book, it was defined or framed by the principle of a 40 hour work week.

I vividly recall managers at the time railing (no ruby intended) against the notion as a clear example that these agile maniacs were out of touch with business reality, out of control, and looking for an easy road at work. What could possibly be next—working from home?

In the second edition of XP, Kent Beck softened the message a bit and dropped the (n) hours recommendation. Nonetheless and thankfully, the notion of sustainable pace has remained as one of the core agile principles. Although there does appear to be an increasing de-emphasis of it within today’s agile teams.

 

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