🐢 Why is Engineering Getting So Slow? Unraveling the Paradox (3min read)

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🌱 The Aftermath of Expansion

Imagine this: two years ago, your company was thriving. You managed to nearly double the size of your engineering department, filling the roles with talented individuals. But now, despite the increased manpower, the business seems to be moving at a slower pace. Why is a smaller competitor seemingly moving faster than you? 🤔

This is a common scenario faced by many leaders in the tech industry. You know that simply adding more people doesn't necessarily make things faster. But how do you explain this to others in the business?

🧐 Internal and External Scrutiny

The pressure to speed up can come from both inside and outside the business. Internally, stakeholders want to know what happened to your output after the department expanded. Externally, the market is watching your growth and waiting to see what it delivers. Both forms of scrutiny can lead to questions about your output and pace. 🕵️‍♀️

🐌 The Natural Slowdown

As your company grows, it's natural for things to slow down. This isn't due to individual performance, but rather a decrease in productivity per head. This can be attributed to three main factors:

Being a victim of your own success: As your customer base grows, so does the demand for higher levels of service, security, and scalability. This creates an ever-expanding array of work that requires attention just to keep things running as they are. 📈

Legacy systems: As your codebase grows, it becomes more challenging to extend and maintain. This can lead to longer development times and increased fear of making sweeping changes. 🖥️

Communication and process overhead: As your team grows, so does the complexity of communication and decision-making. This can slow down processes and require more meetings for consensus to be reached. 🗣️

🛠️ The Solution

So, how do you address this slowdown? As a leader, you have two main tools at your disposal:

Develop software pragmatically: Encourage a culture of continuous refactoring and tackling technical debt. Make sure your teams are right-sized and have a clear purpose. This will help them stay motivated and make progress with minimal outside support. 👨‍💻

Communicate transparently and often: Make sure your progress and decisions are communicated to the rest of the business. This can be done through newsletters, stakeholder meetings, social catch-ups, and Q&A sessions. This will ensure that your achievements are recognized and that any criticism is based on facts rather than assumptions. 📢

In conclusion, it's not that people get slower as a company gets bigger; it's that productivity per head decreases when those staff are part of a larger organization. As a leader, it's important to ensure that your teams are developing software pragmatically and that their progress and achievements are transparent to the rest of the business. This will help you navigate the paradox of growth and speed in the tech industry. 🌟