> we need to figure out another way of working that isn’t agile,

Isn't devops the next generation? (I mean devops as promulgated by Accelerate: https://www.amazon.com/Accelerate-Software-Performing-Techno... , not 'smoosh the devs and ops teams together, add Jenkins and hope for the best'.)

And you'd be wrong.

First, I am not aware of any operating systems that are developed using agile methods, and second the empirical evidence is in that agile improves quality, so it would be better if they were.

https://www.amazon.com/Accelerate-Software-Performing-Techno...

Yes, we're in agreement. A coworker of mine pointed me to the book Accelerate [1], which I admittedly still haven't read, which also mentions that organizations where management tries to make sure engineers are at 100% utilization end up being dysfunctional, partly for the reasons you pointed out.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Accelerate-Software-Performing-Techno...

I prefer studies over anecdotes and found this: https://www.amazon.com/Accelerate-Software-Performing-Techno...

According to this study, you can measure a team's progress and ability with:

* number of production deployments per day (want higher numbers)

* average time to convert a request into a deployed solution (want lower numbers)

* average time to restore broken service (want lower numbers)

* average number of bugfixes per deployment (want lower numbers)

I am curious about other studies in this area and if there is overlapping or conflicting information.

So...shouldn't the focus be fixing the fact that release cycles take several weeks?

This is well researched and discussed in Nicole Forsgren's book: Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps: Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations

https://www.amazon.com/Accelerate-Software-Performing-Techno...