My teams not only routinely finish everything they commit to but often add small new tasks to the sprint. And this is a primarily a tribute to them, not to me.

P.S. - I also maintain a zero inbox at work and at home. It's not that hard.

These things just take an understanding of the painful alternatives, a commitment to doing things right, and the discipline to consistently see it through.

Ironically, pitting sprint "effectiveness" against completion is exactly the kind of self-deception you warning against. Hint: It's not an either/or.

Your "here's what actually happens" scenarios are for the most part a list of poor, undisciplined practices. Of course these are going to bring about failure.

And many of your "solutions" are more of the same (or worse, e.g. multiplying by a constant, etc).

And of course value should be delivered, etc, but these criteria are hardly new.

This entire piece shifts constantly between desperately wrong (and dangerous) practices and "Duh!" insights (yes, please plan based on reality ... duh!), and in the end, I'm not really sure what the point of this article was.

I strongly believe that the intent was positive, but great sprints ought to end with a team retrospective where the team decides on how subsequent sprints can be improved -- not perfect, which was never the intent, but better.

To be fair, you do mention a team retro, but even this is presented as something that is likely to go off the rails in a very negative way. Who works like this?

Personally, I refuse to be part of toxic, malfunctioning organizations, so a lot of this is shocking to me. I know it exists, but how are articles like this going to change anything?

Do you really think that teams that are as deeply dysfunctional as you describe here are going to read this, have an epiphany, and change?