I noticed this as well. No matter how dedicated the team is to not doing waterfall, waterfall nearly always creeps its way back when anything that even smells like a deadline rears its head.
Waterfall planning tends to get ramped up for four really common reasons:
* Managers who simply cannot conceieve of non waterfall planning.
* As a response to failure (ironic coz it tends to increase failure rate)
* Because it's basically the job of most middle management to do waterfall planning.
* Because if your managers manager wants deadlines, tough shit it's deadlines all the way down.
* Because ultimately, upper mamagement tends to prioritize control over profit even if that control is somewhat illusory.
Waterfall planning is kind of infectious, too - if the team does it in one area it spreads to others.
I would say that 90% of teams experience this kind of "waterfall whiplash".
I worked on a couple of teams where upper management didnt set deadlines or create roadmaps or anything. These rare occasions were the only time when I was entitely free of waterfall and we were wayway more productive because of it. Like night and day.
However, 90% of companies can't even envision this, let alone do it. Most people dont even believe its possible - developers included.
I suspect this is one component of the secret sauce of high performing startups that defeat wealthier, more established incumbents.
Waterfall creeps in because it's the most rational and linear way to do anything and we do it in all activities is our life without even thinking about it.
When you build a deck, you 'Waterfall' it.
Iterative development is slightly counter intuitive, until you write software for long enough, then it's definitely the intuitive approach.
I suggest the simplest, easiest, best way to combat the urge to overplan is to break the waterfall down into iterations, do those iterations, assign maybe risk to different iterations given unknowns and to expect change.
I actually started to notice after being a developer for a decade that a lot of people run face first into a metaphorical wall applying waterfall to their personal life where it didnt really work as well.
It's definitely "natural" though. I wonder if it's a cultural hangover from our agricultural past where lack of waterfall planning = dead.
Waterfall planning tends to get ramped up for four really common reasons:
* Managers who simply cannot conceieve of non waterfall planning.
* As a response to failure (ironic coz it tends to increase failure rate)
* Because it's basically the job of most middle management to do waterfall planning.
* Because if your managers manager wants deadlines, tough shit it's deadlines all the way down.
* Because ultimately, upper mamagement tends to prioritize control over profit even if that control is somewhat illusory.
Waterfall planning is kind of infectious, too - if the team does it in one area it spreads to others.
I would say that 90% of teams experience this kind of "waterfall whiplash".
I worked on a couple of teams where upper management didnt set deadlines or create roadmaps or anything. These rare occasions were the only time when I was entitely free of waterfall and we were way way more productive because of it. Like night and day.
However, 90% of companies can't even envision this, let alone do it. Most people dont even believe its possible - developers included.
I suspect this is one component of the secret sauce of high performing startups that defeat wealthier, more established incumbents.