This is Module 2 from the "Mastering Human Factors in Engineering" workshop that Angela Dugan and I co-presented at VSLive Las Vegas 2026. (See also: Module 1: The Leadership Shift.)
The Oogie Feeling
Everybody hates Agile now. You've heard the complaints: too many meetings, story points are meaningless theater, we never finish anything on time, it's just process for the sake of process.
Here's what I think actually happened: Scrum didn't slow you down. It made the uncomfortable things visible. Transparency makes extractive habits visible, and the discomfort IS the tool working. I call it the "oogie feeling" — that uncomfortable sensation when you can suddenly see how things actually are instead of how you wished they were.
And what did most organizations do with that discomfort? They shot the X-ray machine instead of looking at the fracture. Velocity became a target instead of an observation. Ceremonies became compliance instead of conversation. And when the discomfort got too intense, they removed the transparency altogether. Then they blamed the methodology.
What Survives Any Methodology
The middle section of this module is about Definition of Done — which I think is the single most underrated concept in all of software delivery. Forget the methodology wars. Forget whether you're doing Scrum or Kanban or SAFe or nothing at all. If your team doesn't have a shared, honest definition of what "done" means, nothing else matters.
I show a full Definition of Done checklist in the deck, broken into two columns: development/coder stuff and testing/deployment/ops stuff. Every unchecked box on that list is a human problem, not a technical one. Done software is where you START, not where you finish.
The Busy Trap
The back half of the module covers the real cost of multitasking and the difference between outputs and outcomes. One project: all your time, zero waste. Three projects: 60% of your week is gone to context switching. Five projects: you are functionally useless.
And yet most organizations measure outputs — lines of code, story points completed, features shipped — instead of outcomes like customer support tickets reduced, user adoption increased, or revenue impact. Outputs make you feel busy. Outcomes tell you whether you're building something that matters.
Download the Slides
If you want to go deeper on the generative vs. extractive framework that runs underneath all of this, start with Generative vs. Extractive Thinking: Yes, And....
—Ben
