Agile and long term commitments

I work at a software company that makes a big deal out of being "agile". I'm hoping someone can clarify my understanding or validate my suspicions about one of the recent changes which does not seem agile.

​

We are being asked to commit to a project deadline. We're adding the work to the backlog which will span the next 18 months until the project completion. It doesn't need to be a highly detailed, but it does need to be a commitment to finish at that time with a given set of features.

This is not a simple product. Work is regularly discovered (and always has been) which we didn't not know about due to the complexity of developing in this area. But they want us to provide and commit to an 18-month release date with a set of features we will have at the end.

They literally take a bunch of people 1 or 2 years out of college, sit them down with this backlog of 18 months, and ask them "do you commit to this?"

Of course the only real is, "sure?", but the implied answer is "how should I know?"

​

To me, It sounds like management is trying to have someone to blame when everyone inevitably has to work nights and weekends for months to meet the goals "the software team set for itself".

For context: we have had massive losses in the past year. Lots of lead roles are now filled by people with less than 3 years experience and sometimes less than 1 year experience.

​

Am I wrong? Did I misunderstand something about agile? Or is this really fucked up?