As someone living in a housing development that’s being built around them, this isn’t true in the case I see.
2 important reasons are:
1) the project is around 6 years in total
2) the company has to fix any issues with the house for the first 2 years.
If they did all the foundations first, they’d have exactly the problem described in the article - no money till right at the end. Instead, they get money the entire way along and use that to finance the rest of the project. This isn’t an optimisation, iterative delivery is essential to their viability as a business.
They also eat the support costs on houses they build. That means they are repeatedly changing “features” in the houses to minimise those support costs. Just walking down 1 street you can see the evolution of the houses over time as they fixed various small issues with the original design. The houses look basically the same to a casual observer, but are quite stark to someone who lives in one of the versions. They are very obviously agile, and have a great system for inspecting and adapting. That doesnt happen on 2 week cycles, but it does happen at a pace appropriate for them.
2 important reasons are: 1) the project is around 6 years in total 2) the company has to fix any issues with the house for the first 2 years.
If they did all the foundations first, they’d have exactly the problem described in the article - no money till right at the end. Instead, they get money the entire way along and use that to finance the rest of the project. This isn’t an optimisation, iterative delivery is essential to their viability as a business.
They also eat the support costs on houses they build. That means they are repeatedly changing “features” in the houses to minimise those support costs. Just walking down 1 street you can see the evolution of the houses over time as they fixed various small issues with the original design. The houses look basically the same to a casual observer, but are quite stark to someone who lives in one of the versions. They are very obviously agile, and have a great system for inspecting and adapting. That doesnt happen on 2 week cycles, but it does happen at a pace appropriate for them.