3 Myths about why your Engineering team is slow

The most common question I get is "why is our software engineering team so slow"? The second most common question I get is "How do I get them to move faster?".

Here are three reasons that seem to reasonably explain the reasons why engineering teams don't ship faster but in reality are red herrings.

Myth 1: The Engineers don't code fast enough

Maybe the problem is that the engineers aren't writing code fast enough. Maybe Github Copilot will help. If we replace our engineers with Generative AI the software will ship faster.

The unfortunate reality is that while generative AI can be helpful and does indeed make engineers more productive, the speed at which the code gets written isn't really a bottleneck.

Myth 2: There aren't enough engineers on the team

Maybe if we hired 20 more engineers and throw people at the problem the software will show up faster. It stands to reason that more people means more work per unit time and consequently higher velocity.

The reality is that while some parts of software development can be done in parallel, there are limits to parallelism and more engineers added to a project that is delayed only slows it down even more.

Myth 3: The Engineers simply aren't working hard enough

Maybe the engineers aren't working hard enough! If we had them work longer hours and even work on the weekends, then maybe those lazy developers will finally get it done.

The reality once again is much more different. Making your engineers work longer hours will only serve to lower the quality of the software in the short term and burn them out in the long run.