How To Fix Broken Teams

Overview
This article discusses why critical teams become dysfunctional and provides a framework for diagnosing and fixing broken teams. It highlights common patterns such as unnecessary complexity, reliance on heroics, under-management, and misplaced loyalty to a manager.

Key Takeaways

• Teams often break when they own critical work and make it overly complex.
• Heroic, ad-hoc fixes mask underlying problems and increase dependency.
• Lack of constructive feedback and growth opportunities leads to under-management.
• Loyalty to a manager can keep a dysfunctional team together longer than it should be.
• Fixing a broken team requires simplifying the product, establishing clear feedback loops, and redefining management responsibilities.

Who Would Benefit

• Engineering managers facing under-performing teams.
• Technical leads responsible for critical services.
• CTOs and VP-level leaders looking to improve organizational health.
• Product managers working with cross-functional teams.

Frameworks and Methodologies

• Root cause analysis to identify complexity drivers.
• Complexity reduction through modularization and documentation.
• Structured feedback and performance coaching.
• Redefining team ownership and responsibility boundaries.