I don't think it is as much about "early" as it is about "intense and constrained batches of work". The "early" part of things is just a sound advice to avoid m

I don't think it is as much about "early" as it is about "intense and constrained batches of work". The "early" part of things is just a sound advice to avoid missing deadlines, but doesn't really help increase the quality of your work or reduce waste. Early discovery to outline a draft strategy in small committee (one person is sometimes enough) helps the team with reaching velocity quickly once it gets started. The hard part is sustaining it until delivery of whatever it is you've set up as the target. That's why sprints can be handy, reducing the amount that needs to be delivered so that the team doesn't get slowed down on a big block of work.