"The business wants to grow. We are not in a position to do that — none of the structural elements are in place."
Scaling Without Breaking
A global cloud accounting platform needed to triple its UK engineering capacity without breaking delivery in the process. One team, scaling to three. Engineering managers newly promoted from individual contributor roles. Zero sprints in the preceding eight had delivered their committed scope. The structural conditions for growth were not in place — and the business knew it.
The diagnostic identified a near-absent product ownership function as the primary driver — developers were filling the product management vacuum while also being expected to ship. Fixing that single structural problem, alongside standing up three focused product teams, moved delivery against commitment from 58% to 90% and cycle times by more than half.
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Unwinding the Feature Factory
A return engagement, commissioned by specific exception during a COVID-19 freeze on all external work. Two Payroll product teams operating as a feature factory — engineers assigned to features rather than product areas, decisions flowing from Engineering Management rather than Product Management, individuals measured on personal throughput rather than collective output.
Less than a third of engineering time was on business value work at baseline. Context switching and waiting together consumed the equivalent of one and a half working days per engineer per week. Four structural and cultural interventions over sixteen months moved business value time from 30.6% to 52.6% — a 72% relative increase.
The structural problems had a cultural shadow. Engineers felt told what to do rather than trusted to use their judgement. Changing the structure without addressing that belief would not have held. Both had to move together.
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