Right. But more often than not, the problem that's being solved is "we have gotten money to throw at things", so the answer of throwing in many more people to busywork kind of makes sense.

That's before we even think about all the consultants and similar roles where busywork really is work. Then all the organizational or agile roles.

The fact that some product gets shipped and we still have customers is good, because that's what pays for it all, but that is just the foundation we all rest on. Almost like background noise.