Exact same experience. A kanban board with clear priorities was my best experience so far in my near 25 years of career in this field. This was thanks to the big bosses which were pretty chill in regard to when things would be ready, as long as it was "as soon as possible" they were happy.
All the Agile an scrum bullshit get introduced the moment the higher ups want to have exact estimates and deadlines and just shipping features is the only prioirity. Despite all the stupid effort to predict task sizes and times in the end they're always wrong, things take more time (or less) and we wasted a ton of time and mental energy on the shared taboo lie that we're estimating stuff.
All the Agile an scrum bullshit get introduced the moment the higher ups want to have exact estimates and deadlines and just shipping features is the only prioirity. Despite all the stupid effort to predict task sizes and times in the end they're always wrong, things take more time (or less) and we wasted a ton of time and mental energy on the shared taboo lie that we're estimating stuff.