Yes, but that isn't my point. The OP was griping about the difficulty business people have in seeing where the effort happens in software to produce something c

Yes, but that isn't my point. The OP was griping about the difficulty business people have in seeing where the effort happens in software to produce something customer facing, and the dysfunction that happens from that inability to see it. He then wonders in a coda how big infrastructure projects ever succeeded with that kind of disconnect. I'm saying that a big factor at play is that agile subjugated the tech to the business in a way that large nuts and bolts engineering projects simply aren't allowed to do: requirements - down a fine level of detail - have to be provided up front. Once engineers in those domains have their requirements, they are really free to use their expertise as engineers. I don't mean to imply I'm a proponent of "waterfall", but it bugs me that agile evangelists think they've found The One True Way to do software, and don't acknowledge what I think are serious impediments to calling the act of writing software "engineering".