Does your hatred of task management software extend to bug tracking software as well?

Not at all—as I said, I do agree that some level of software infrastructure is necessary to keep track of the engineering backlog. It would be foolish to try to keep that all in your head for a big project. One of the things I came to appreciate about Apple when I worked there was its homegrown bug tracking system, Radar, which has grown very organically over the years to reflect Apple culture and I feel scales well to the needs of different project sizes.

What I’m mostly reacting against is the layer of pseudo-scientific project management apparatus (e.g. “points” and “velocity”) and workflow management that applications like Pivotal Tracker attempt to impose on engineers. I personally think all of that is actually pretty pointless and dehumanizing.