Good question. IMO, one sprint or two weeks was already a lot. The damage was done from the beginning. It generated a lot of stress, eroded the relationship of design and dev teams, and between the CTO and employees due to our complaints not being addressed on time.
I think the distinction between this and "crunch time" is that crunch time is meant to be temporary, even when it isn't. In this case the prospect that this wouldn't ever change eventually became as stressful as the work itself, or perhaps more.
No, some of them also confided they were heavily stressed due to pressure to deliver. I urged them to "work less" but the pressure was still coming in from above.
That's a great question! Because of this strategy? I wouldn't say it moved the needle in the slightest, and that was entirely expected. There was however a lot of churn because the platform we operate on launched some features that made our own product obsolete.
The goal of this strategy was merely to make the process and the releases more predictable, but it ended up being at the expense of designers and developers.
I think the distinction between this and "crunch time" is that crunch time is meant to be temporary, even when it isn't. In this case the prospect that this wouldn't ever change eventually became as stressful as the work itself, or perhaps more.