As an employee and a developer, I don’t want to
Work with a direct manager (or sole decision maker) I never see.
Follow a plan that is not adapted [anymore], because stakeholders agreed on it.
Work on a project that is never validated against reality (users, actual needs, integration, deployment, tests…).
Spend lots of time writing or maintaining doc that is never read, will become irrelevant as soon as it’s written, or duplicates existing information like the code.
Face impediments that are never removed… ever.
Work for a company that doesn’t allow to take any micro decision because:
- Of blaming.
- It doesn’t have other goals than “increase money”, thus no direction regarding the actual work.
- Mistakes are not allowed.
Spend hours in meetings managing problems I would have solved by working.
Spend hours in meetings sharing, or providing tools with, information that is already publicly available, or data that could be directly derived from it.
Put hands back on code I left days ago because of bugs/regressions.
Work on a born-dead project, because it was budgeted 18 months ago, or because it was budgeted even earlier and budgets are based on history.
Not having resources that would save us money, because it’s managed by another department which sole objective is to minimize its budget (e.g. IT).
Work for a company that encourages fire-fighting instead of anticipating problems.
Be slowed down by the organization I work for.
Optimize things that don’t get in the way.
Work for a company that manages human resources.
Hear that a decision that gets in the way is strategic/the rule.
Not have a dream to make come true with my company.
…
As a human being, I want to have the opportunity to succeed, and make it happen.
AAAgile 
How about:
– Talk to the customer myself (in order to get the requirements or update him on the project status) – instead of the project manager
– Work with a manager/project manager who takes his insecurities on me
– Being micromanaged
Thanks for the comment. Great list. Totally agree with you.