I think the author misses what the purpose of deadlines is. They are contracts between organizations for when software will be available, which are used for other organizations to make informed decisions without needing very tight and constant communication. They're analogous to SLAs in service-oriented designs.
In a moderately large (say, 500+ employee) organization, deadlines are essential to get anything done. Suppose, for example, you're overhauling a billing system, making international tax calculations simpler. The finance team is making a hiring decision: they need to get tax stuff calculated before the end of the year; do they need to find consultants to help them with this, or is the software going to be ready in time?
If your answer to them is "I can't tell you, we just do stuff on the kanban board and don't think about deadlines," they're
(1) going to be less than thrilled with you, decreasing trust, and (2) unable to make their decision effectively.
I don't think "there's only "stuff" to be done" is an adequate alternative to deadlines and sprints if it doesn't address the reason organizations use those tools. They're primarily tools for predictability and scaling outbound communication about progress; I think the author mistakenly believes they're supposed to be motivational tools. They're sometimes misused that way, for sure, but that's not the whole picture.
In a moderately large (say, 500+ employee) organization, deadlines are essential to get anything done. Suppose, for example, you're overhauling a billing system, making international tax calculations simpler. The finance team is making a hiring decision: they need to get tax stuff calculated before the end of the year; do they need to find consultants to help them with this, or is the software going to be ready in time?
If your answer to them is "I can't tell you, we just do stuff on the kanban board and don't think about deadlines," they're (1) going to be less than thrilled with you, decreasing trust, and (2) unable to make their decision effectively.
I don't think "there's only "stuff" to be done" is an adequate alternative to deadlines and sprints if it doesn't address the reason organizations use those tools. They're primarily tools for predictability and scaling outbound communication about progress; I think the author mistakenly believes they're supposed to be motivational tools. They're sometimes misused that way, for sure, but that's not the whole picture.