This stood out to me as well. In principle, the three strikes rule is good theoretically. In practice, it is harder than most management gurus realize. The i

This stood out to me as well. In principle, the three strikes rule is good theoretically. In practice, it is harder than most management gurus realize. The issue is that most managers know less than the people they direct. So when an employee says this isn't technically feasible or that they don't have the knowledge or skills to implement said request. The manager doesn't have any rational basis to believe or not believe their employee. It's all based on past creditability. I would argue most employees want to do a good job. The problem is similar to the "Peter Principle." In many cases, clueless managers demand their employees to sculpt the next Pieta or paint the next Mona Lisa with sticks and crayons and no prior training. When the employees push back against hard estimates, the clueless managers double down and say they are insubordinate. I am including Product Owners and Scrum Masters in clueless managers category. In many cases, they took on these titles but have not changed their behavior according to the Agile Manifesto. They see themselves as the order givers and the developers as the order takers. The only people problem here is the management idea that managers/product owners/scrum masters don't need to know anything about the technology they are implementing.