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The Endless Loop: Why PDCA, Agile and Scrum Feel Like Your Comfy Chair

October 12, 2025·6 mins

The following hypothesis will annoy management gurus.

And drive Agile prophets up the wall.

For everyone else, it may be a conversation starter—or a non-starter:

The success of PDCA, Agile, Scrum and other cyclical management methods lies in their ability to eliminate the psychological distress caused by final outcomes. These methods provide psychological safety by alleviating the fear of the end while retaining the traditional benefits of project management phases.

How did I come up with this madness? Observation and experience.

A brief research with my Silicon Sparring Partner™ revealed that this hypothesis represents a blind spot in management research. It could form the basis for a doctoral thesis that finally explains why managers are so fond of their endless cycles.

Anyone who is toying with the idea is cordially invited to co-author this hypothesis with me.

The Problem with the End

Let’s be clear: the fear of death has been well researched.
Keyword: Terror Management Theory.
The fear of completion, less so.
Keywords: completion anxiety, procrastination.

Finally done! Right?

Crammed for years. Hundreds of hours of overtime.

Weekend shifts. “Pizza Days”.

Then the launch. Then the certificate. Then the closing party. Then the hangover.

Not because you overdid it with your favourite drink. Not even because you no longer had to turn off the light at 6 a.m.

But because it’s over.

There is a reason for Tom Cargill’s rule: “The last 10% takes just as long as the first 90%.”

You think: Sure, the end is technically complex.
I claim: The reason is not that you like to save the best (hardest) 10% for last.

It’s that you can’t stop.

You are afraid of the end.

Because you never planned for the end.

Not the end of your school days.

Not the end of your project.

Not the end of your audit.

Not your own.

The Problem with the Project

But a classic project is exactly that.

Terminated. (Management experts know that this is part of being SMART.)

It has one cycle. Exactly one.

You plan. You invest. You build. You hand over.

And then you win. Or you lose.

Perhaps your pay depends on it. Or your bonus.

Your nightmare.

The last 10% still gives you the chance to win.

Sometimes for years.

I know of project portfolios where 90% of the projects were stuck at 90%+.

Always. The list grew every year.

Starting is easy. Quitting hurts.

By the way, project management also seems to be pretty well researched.

The Problem with Physics

I studied physics. At an institute for particle physics. With a scholarship. But without a degree.

Because I understood the perspective too early:
A maximum of two completed experiments in your life.
Maybe just one. Maybe none at all.

You die, and the next day, after decades, the breakthrough finally comes.

Not for me. I wanted faster success.

So, software development instead. Then full stack.
Information security now.

Just as an aside.

The Illusion of Infinity

PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) is an ingenious trick.

The cycle never ends. Apparently.

Infinite growth. Infinite improvement.

ISO management standards formally certify this.

Continual improvement is not a “nice-to-have”. It is a mandatory standard requirement.

And that’s great.

Because your success is measured. Even thoroughly verified.
But it is never final.

You almost always have a second chance.

Because after the audit is before the audit.
And after the release is before the release.

Continuous delivery pushes the envelope.

Always at it. Always ahead. Always bleeding edge. Never roll back. Roll forward.

Until you drop.

The Economic Advantage

Always running in circles has its practical value.

You’ll never be short of work.

Even if your improvement curve is asymptotic. It has to be. Almost nothing is unbounded. You know the two possible exceptions. I won’t quote them here.

But there is more to it than keeping busy.

Agile even boosts your productivity. By 20-40%.

If you ask a search engine. Sometimes other figures appear.

Origin? Unclear.
Evidence? Doubtful.
Prevalence? Epidemic.

Management experts may profitably disagree on this.

What’s more, cyclical operations directly relate to ARR.

Your process is up and running. You deliver features non-stop.

Yesterday’s USP becomes tomorrow’s baseline. Classic Kano.

Make everything a subscription.

You don’t want to sell a one-off licence.

You want to sell subscriptions.

For life, ideally.

Pure speculation? Maybe. But plausible.

(Fancy my next hypothesis?)

All right, back down to earth.

The Reality Check

In reality, the cyclical approach looks like this.

Months pass. You realize your backlog is just getting longer. Linearly. With a diligent team, exponentially.

Your burn “down” chart points to high heaven.

But you just can’t let go.

Because you think: Maybe work item 1538 will still matter in 3 years? Can’t risk reinventing it later, can we?

I’ve been slow to part with things and habits. Especially those that have proven not to work.

So have you. How do you plead? … Confess!

Your backlog owner is long gone.

Then you toss the entire backlog. Structured sorting has an abysmal ROI. You know the drill.

You must purge ruthlessly.

Welcome back, painful end.

Because even Agile only works if the end (regular tidying up) is firmly built in.

As noted: That hurts.

Just like your morning exercise. If you don’t do it every day.

I used to fence. Each summer holiday washed away my training success.

Until I learned to train on my own. Why I quit fencing? Beside the point.

Cyclical methods require regularity. And a good dose of discipline.

In short: A bit of an ending each day.

Always tidying up. How inconvenient!

Amongst our weaponry: …ruthless efficiency.

Enough Already!

You may be asking yourself: “So what?” What are you getting at?
Nice musings.

But seriously—what now?

What would be your recommendation? Your “actionable item?”

(By the way, good managers will constantly confront you with this question.)

Pragmatically: look at the end of your backlog every day. Only the last entry.

Older than a year? Not assigned? Priority lower than “high”? Scrap it!

Or Is It Just the Beginning?

In the spirit of PDCA and Agile, I am throwing this first article into the ring.

With this perspective on cyclical management methods:

Cyclical management methods are empirical processes that work through a series of experiments. The output of one experiment is to be understood as the input of the next.

Unsurprisingly, there is no mention of endings here. Only of experiments. Completely dispassionate.

This is just a trial run. I’m testing the waters. As the saying goes: Fail fast.

If it resonates, there will be more. Otherwise, I’ll shelve it right away.

The eternal survival of this first and only blog post in archive.org wouldn’t be its worst fate.