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The Beautiful Mess
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TBM 303: The Current Tech Puzzle (With Diverse Takes)
- Tech companies are facing several problems such as duplicative administrative tasks, an onslaught of meetings, and shifting strategies which are resulting in long work hours for managers.
- Increasing demand for managers to get into details has made work much harder. Teams are filling out engagement surveys, resulting in leadership calling for managers to get into the details as well.
- Managers are drowning in low-value work, however, the fear of layoffs prevents them from calling out the current problems in tech companies.
- Meaningful change requires reducing Work In Progress (WIP) and changing architecture, code ownership, and business model. However, the shifting technological and economical climates result in naturally hectic situations.
- Teams are likely to be playing an evermore elaborate game of Tetris to cope which exacerbates problems and makes investing time in “boring” work, harder to refactor and improve.
- Leadership needs to focus on removing out-dated work practices and enforcing processes that encourage team members to say “no” without escalating things up the chain.
- For dissent to be allowed and welcomed, leaders have to communicate effectively with each other and remove development-by-committee practices.
- Limiting the work in progress (WIP) has been cited as the key to solving problems related to administrative overhead, reducing technical debt and increasing productivity.
- The current context requires firms and leaders to recognize the different phases, corresponding to different gears, of market conditions, customer readiness, capability maturity, economic willingness to pay, competitive alternatives, etc. and allow the gears to shift accordingly.
- It is imperative that leadership establishes a clear process for concerns, build trust, and create an environment where failures are acceptable and seen as learning opportunities.
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