They also can mistake business for productivity. For example, there's the classic joke (at least in the sys admin world) about breaking something about a month

They also can mistake business for productivity. For example, there's the classic joke (at least in the sys admin world) about breaking something about a month before reviews, then stay over the weekend to fix it. You will be the savior of the company and be rewarded in kind. Really good work is hard to see sometimes because it doesn't look like work. If you had two teams, one just delivered on time on and on budget and the other spent a heroic month overdue fixing bugs and finally shipping over budget it might appear that the people on the second team are better. They work more and worked harder than the first team. You might even decide that the first team was given too large a budget and too much time, when in reality they paced themselves and had talented people who could give good estimates and were able to deliver on their promises. YOU might not make that mistake, but I can guarantee that many managers would give greater rewards the team working overtime to fix (their own) bugs than the one that consistently delivers on time and on budget. I think it has more to due with the culture believing that software is buggy and impossible to schedule, and rewarding people when faced with those things.