The End of Improvement

The Ambitious Noughties

There was a time, not long ago, when the desire for improving our ways of working seemed insatiable in the software development field. Around the first decade of this new century, our industry seemed filled with ambitious visionaries – determined to overhaul outdated practices, streamline inefficient workflows, and move beyond cumbersome legacy ways of working.

New approaches were the hot topics on everyone’s minds, promising to free teams from the constraints of bloated, joy-sucking development. Concepts like daily standups, timeboxed cycles, kanbans, and retrospectives became standard practice, with teams attacking projects in short, focused bursts. Iterative processes with continuous feedback loops were all the rage. We took inspiration from the Giants such as:

• Ackoff
• Schein
• Deming
• Goldratt
• Buckminster Fuller
• Marshall Rosenberg
• Stafford Beer (VSM, etc.)
• Gregory Bateson
• Margaret Mead
• Taiichi Ohno
• John Seddon
• Don “The Don” Reinertsen

We dissected and studied the principles of:

• Lean
• Training Within Industry (TWI)
• Socio-technical Systems
• The Toyota Product Development System (TPDS)
• Morning Star
• WL Gore
• Haier
• Semco
• Menlo Innovations

and a host of others.

The Rallying Cry

The goal? Cut bureaucracy, promote face-to-face communication, prioritise the delivery of high-quality “working software” and above all else bring more joy into the workplace. No more excessive documentation or tedious planning sessions. We’d fail fast, learn from customers, use the best knowledge available to Man, and constantly adapt our approach.

You could feel the palpable relief when developers traded in their cube farms for open office layouts intended to inspire collaboration. There was a grassroots momentum to work smarter.

The Gradual Demise

But somewhere along the line, that collective drive seemed to fizzle out into resigned acceptance. Was COVID a factor, I wonder. And the consequent remote working?

Today, walking through any tech workplace reveals teams in an unfortunate state of extremes. On one side, those many still operating using antiquated processes that should have been retired years ago. Rigid hierarchies. Stifling red tape. Mindless box-ticking rather than meaningful progress.

On the other, there were those who adopted “modern” ways of working…only to slowly backslide into new dysfunctional habits. Unmotivated workers mindlessly performing pro forma rituals, succumbing to collective apathy. The processes changed, but the hunger for actual improvement has left the building.

The Lost Ideals

What happened to that passion for customer-centric, iterative craftsmanship? Viewing colleagues as peers, not corporate zombies? Taking pride in elegant products, over simply checking boxes?

Perhaps the new approaches were flawed from the start. Or the ideals were too lofty for reality at scale. Most likely, disillusionment gradually set in as the same organisational failures persisted – miscommunication, mission creep, mounting technical debt, management metacluelessness, and of course, burnout.

The Harsh Reality

Regardless of the root causes, one truth is inescapable: That widespread eagerness to find smarter, more fulfilling ways of working has dwindled. Fatigued developers have retreated, finding comfort in self-protection rather than striving for better.

A Faint Flicker of Hope

We did rally together toward a vibrant vision of leaner workplace cultures. For a few bright years, we dared dream the next big breakthrough would be nurturing more joyful ways of working and relating.

That glimmer still flickers under the rubble of abandoned buzzwords and dismantled visions. But rekindling it invites rededication to a progress that few seem able to muster lately. Complacency has become the new normal. And the need for pride in work just an echo from history.

Semper Mirabilis.