Too much testing, no. Too much time spent building test frameworks, simulators and 101 other things before a line of code is written? Well I just witnessed it last year.
Not that it was the only factor. Heavy 'agile' process was certainly part of it. They also threw everything away and restarted again at some point, likely due to changing requirements. But it was part of the picture that added up to nothing getting done.
Jesus, what a nightmare! You look back on your work and you've only produced tooling instead of solving the problem you set out to solve. An easy trap to fall into, but doing it for a year is something else.
It wasn't quite as bleak a picture as maybe I've painted.... but not far off either. Must have been pretty depressing for the team as well as for the folks running the show.
On the positive, I think they all got good roles with our competitors!
Not that it was the only factor. Heavy 'agile' process was certainly part of it. They also threw everything away and restarted again at some point, likely due to changing requirements. But it was part of the picture that added up to nothing getting done.