The 'little work as you can possibly do' is a trap. It's a toxic frame that unconsciously poisons a company culture(others notice and emulate). And it happens, often, as a completely understandable defense mechanism.

This is made worse every time a manager gives an unrealistic deadline. Exemplified by rushing towards ANY deadlines. Moreover, it happens as a result of forcing the worker to sit in a chair for 8 hours staring at a monitor.

A huge amount of work can be done by communicating vision, thinking for N hours, then hacking something together in 1-2 hours. I think companies should rethink the outdated assembly line factory worker schema for thought workers.