Stuff like this contributes massively to a culture of low expectations too. When it becomes accepted that simple things take a long time to do the normal rewar

Stuff like this contributes massively to a culture of low expectations too. When it becomes accepted that simple things take a long time to do the normal reward system goes flying out the window. Both internally and organizationally. Internally because the sense of accomplishment from seeing the new bit of functionality is tiny compared to the effort it took to get done. Organizationally it becomes harder to reward productivity because with no sense of how long something should take there's no way of knowing if an engineer is fast or not. It's a productivity death spiral. Engineers slack off because there is no internal or external reward for doing good work. That slacking off slows development and then that velocity gets accepted as normal. Engineers continue to slack off against the new "normal" and establish an even slower normal to slack off against. That's how hours long tasks turn to days and then weeks and then months until the project dies.