> it becomes attractive (and safer) to deal more in the pseudo-work than the actual work. More charitably, they feel this work will make the product better. Th

> it becomes attractive (and safer) to deal more in the pseudo-work than the actual work. More charitably, they feel this work will make the product better. That may or may not be true, but if you've been involved in failures and part of the after action review was "this person should have been consulted because they are the expert in whatever failed", that becomes part of the process. Pretty soon, this refactoring and consultation becomes expected, and so on until we're at the point you are speaking of. And I say this as someone who is part of the problem. I have unfinished projects right now that are stuck in meetings and consensus building. I want, at minimum, to be able to say, "you were given the opportunity to participate in the process, but you left it to me." but I've also made mistakes and poor decisions for lack of those steps more than once. I have no doubt that there are people avoiding failure by not shipping, but I do not think it is as simple as that, there are a variety of cultural norms and experience colliding here.