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This episode is sponsored by Pluralsight. Pluralsight is hiring data scientists, machine learning engineers, and software engineers.\\nCheck out the jobs at https://pluralsight.com/softskills

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

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   I\\u2019m current doing nearly nothing at work (not by choice) and getting paid a king\\u2019s ransom for it, just to stay on the roster. I\\u2019ve never been in this situation before. Would I be foolish to give it all up just to not be miserably bored? I\\u2019m pretty sure this isn\\u2019t sustainable, and I\\u2019d get laid off in the next economic downturn before you guys might get to my question, but just curious what your insights are.

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   How to deal with teams that are run as \\u201cAgile\\u201d, but management who want timelines and deadlines to steer the business?

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   I\\u2019m at my second large software development company that\\u2019s following the agile/scrum ceremonies with weekly sprints that entail grooming/planning/retro meetings. Management keeps track of progress to align the efforts of multiple teams spread across the organization. I\\u2019ve noticed over the past year an increased desire for estimated timelines for when each team will be done with their portion of the project. This forces the team to groom and size stories months out ahead. These estimates end up becoming deadlines that need justification to be pushed back, which is common since as you get into the work you find more stories need to be added.

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   I had a very similar experience at my last company. Both have 5-10k employees.

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   I understand the needs of the business to plan ahead. So saying \\u201cit\\u2019ll be ready when it\\u2019s done\\u201d is not a good answer. However, it feels like we\\u2019re constantly falling behind arbitrary deadlines and in a constant frenzy to catch up.

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   So\\u2026.what do?

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