As a CEO, it’s both alarming and frustrating when it feels like your company is lagging behind. You notice the competition seems to be releasing new features rapidly, and capturing market interest while internally, the story is quite different. Sales and customer success teams are becoming increasingly vocal about the technology team’s sluggish pace in delivering critical features. This scenario is not just a reflection on the tech team’s capabilities but a common challenge that many organisations face as they scale and evolve.
The Root of the Issue: Why Tech Teams May Seem Slow
1. Legacy of Quick Fixes and Initial Setups
Startups, in their nascent stages, often prioritise speed over sustainability. The initial focus is on proving the business model, which means technology choices may often be about cost and speed rather than long-term suitability. As the company scales, these early decisions can lead to a mismatch between the existing technology and the business’s evolving needs.
2. The Burden of Technical Debt
Technical debt is a concept many CEOs might be familiar with but not fully understand its profound impact. The shortcuts your team took yesterday can significantly slow them down today. In industries driven by technology, the tools, libraries, and infrastructures evolve rapidly. If your tech team hasn’t updated these assets regularly, the accumulating debt can grind development to a halt. Acquisitions often add to the technical debt burden. Integrating software hosted on different cloud providers, or written in different languages or with different software libraries can take years and grind progress to a halt. If people leave after an acquisition you might be left with code or systems no one understands and your existing team will therefore be slow to fix or improve that acquired software.
3. Changes in Team Dynamics
Outsourcing parts of the development, key team members leaving, or inadequate onboarding processes can erode the core understanding and skills within your tech team. This erosion often leads to a lack of essential in-house expertise, making it challenging to maintain, much less improve, your technological assets efficiently.
Tackling the Slowdown: Strategies for CEOs
1. Acknowledge and Assess the Situation
The first step in addressing the slowdown is acknowledging it without casting blame. Understand the specific areas where your technology lacks, be it outdated software, accumulated technical debt, or skill deficits in your team.
2. Invest in Technical Debt Reduction
Just as financial debt can cripple a company’s growth, technical debt can stifle your ability to innovate and respond to market demands. Encourage and support your tech team in taking regular “tech debt days,” inspired by Alex Ewerlöf’s approach, to address and refactor problematic areas of your codebase. If the problem is very large you may have to bite the bullet and invest in getting the problem out of the way before working on new things or engage a third party to help.
3. Enhance Skills and Team Capabilities
It’s crucial to have a strategy for continuous learning and skills development within your team. This could involve more systematic onboarding processes, ongoing training programmes, and hiring new talents to fill the critical gaps. Investing in your team’s growth not only boosts morale but also enhances their capability to handle complex and evolving technological challenges.
4. Prioritise and Plan
With a clear understanding of your technology’s shortcomings and your team’s capabilities, begin prioritising the work. Not everything can be fixed at once; choose projects that promise the most significant impact on your business goals and customer satisfaction. Transparent communication about these priorities and the reasons behind them will help align your entire company’s efforts.
Conclusion
The feeling that your tech team is moving too slowly can be a symptom of deeper issues ranging from accumulated technical debt to skills gaps. By taking a strategic approach to understand these problems, investing in solutions, and supporting your team, you can transform the pace and effectiveness of your technology development. This proactive stance not only addresses the current slowdown but also sets your company up for future success, keeping you competitive in a fast-evolving marketplace.