I’ve had more than one person suggest to me that the short release cycles favored by agile methodologies have as much to do with encouraging developer productivity by reducing the time available as anything else. And, to be honest, I sometimes find myself asking “How can I possibly finish within the time allotted for a single sprint?” Part of the problem is that developers have a tendency to be optimistic about what they can accomplish in a given time frame, and under agile, it is up to them to set goals (e.g., during a scrum planning session) and to manage their workload. Another factor is being reluctant to report impediments (or even to see unforseen difficulties as impediments). Of course, we know that the…