An Engineering Leader’s Guide on Fixing a Struggling Engineering Team

Every engineering team experiences ups and downs. Periods of high energy and productivity are followed by inevitable lulls. These fluctuations are normal, regardless of team size or structure. However, when an engineering team’s performance consistently plateaus without improvement, it’s a clear sign of underlying issues.

In one of our previous blogs, we discussed how you can self-assess the overall health of your engineering team. If that assessment showed that your team is thriving, congratulations on running an efficient and results-driven engineering team. 

But if your self-assessment revealed areas needing improvement, or if your team is struggling on multiple fronts– what we call “bleed” – then this blog is for you. Because every engineering team deserves to sail smoothly, with all hands on deck and the wind at their back.

Therefore, in this blog, we’ll outline practical steps to address the root causes responsible for poor performance of your engineering team and help you get it back on track. But first, let’s get into the signs that your engineering team might be in trouble.

Signs Your Engineering Team is Struggling

Recognizing when your engineering team is struggling can be challenging, but there are some telltale signs if you look closely. Spotting these early can help you fix problems before they get out of hand.

One of the first signs is a lack of new ideas. If your team seems stuck and improvements are rare, it might mean the creative spark is fading. Your team is stuck in the rut of dealing with bugs and tech debt or taking too long to deliver what was committed. Therefore leaving no space for thinking and building something new and innovative. However, innovation is the lifeblood of any thriving engineering team, and without it, things can feel stagnant. It's a sign that your team might need some fresh inspiration. And some overhaul as well, in terms of how it operates, runs and ships products in natural course. 

Another common sign is an increase in bugs. Have you seen more bug reports lately? High bug rates can be more than just frustrating; they often mean rushed work, poor quality control, or a lack of attention to detail. It’s like a warning light flashing, signaling deeper issues in your workflow or processes that need urgent attention. 

You might also notice that tasks are taking longer to complete, deadlines are frequently missed, and the once energetic buzz of productivity has quieted down. This dip in productivity is a clear indicator that something’s off. 

Low morale can creep in quietly but has loud consequences. 

These signs can come in phases or barge in altogether. However, every engineering team is unique, with its own set of challenges. But after closely working with hundreds of engineering teams for more than three years now, we’ve found that issues typically fall into certain key areas and we’ve narrowed it down to four: alignment, velocity, quality, and planning accuracy. 

So the insights we're about to share further in the blog will focus on addressing and fixing these specific areas. So, let’s get into what you can do to revive and fix a struggling engineering team and restore it back to health!

💡Also read: How Healthy is My Engineering Team? A Guide to Assess Your Engineering Team’s Performance

How Can You Fix a Struggling Engineering Team?

A struggling engineering team requires a strategic approach to address the root causes. Let's get into some key areas where improvements can be made.

Alignment Issues

When alignment is the problem, it’s crucial to ensure that the engineering team's efforts align with the company’s goals:

Focus on Building New Features

In some scenarios, we’ve seen teams bogged down by maintaining old technology and frameworks, which can slow progress and stifle innovation. You might find yourself spending more time fixing outdated systems than working on new projects that could propel the company forward.

To address this, conduct an audit to understand the extent of technical debt and its impact on productivity. Create a dedicated tech debt backlog and treat it separately from your regular project backlog. Prioritize tasks based on their alignment with strategic goals, focusing on work that drives business growth and customer satisfaction.

Another critical aspect is focusing on building new features rather than spending too much time on KLTO (Keep the Lights On) tasks. Addressing tech debt, old frameworks, and poor design choices is essential to free up resources for innovation. Surely, nobody wants to work on clearing tech debts, but taking the time to remove these debts could propel the team to a whole new level of productivity. 

Ensure Goal Clarity

Misaligned teams often struggle due to unclear objectives. Engineers without a defined target can easily lose focus, leading to inefficiencies and frustration. Ensuring alignment on goals over sprints and quarters is crucial to keeping everyone on track and motivated. We understand it might be hard to give concrete outcome goals, and that’s fine, but there is always room for process goals. Because, as with all things in life, taking care of the process mostly takes care of the outcomes too.

First, make sure your team knows what they’re aiming for. Hold regular planning meetings at the start of each sprint and quarter to discuss and set clear goals. The goals can vary from reviewing a PR within 24 hours, minimizing incidents of refactored code, reducing cycle time by 35%, etc. These meetings ensure that all team members understand the objectives and how their tasks contribute to achieving these goals. Keep the communication transparent and use project management tools to keep everyone updated.

It’s also easy to get sidetracked by tasks that don’t add real value to the project or the customer. To avoid this, implement a prioritization framework to identify and focus on high-impact tasks. Use methods like the Eisenhower Matrix to categorize tasks based on their urgency and importance.

Regular reviews are essential to assess the progress and relevance of ongoing tasks. Adjust priorities as needed to make sure the team is working on tasks that provide the most value. This will help you identify and eliminate tasks that don’t contribute to the project’s goals or customer satisfaction. Streamline processes and remove unnecessary steps to keep the team focused on value-adding activities.

By ensuring goal clarity and maintaining alignment on goals over sprints and quarters, your team can stay focused, efficient, and motivated. This structured approach helps in achieving project objectives and delivering products that meet or exceed customer expectations. Here’s a snapshot of one of Hatica’s dashboards that helps you set and track goals for individuals and at the team level as well.

Regular reviews are essential to assess the progress and relevance of ongoing tasks. Adjust priorities as needed to make sure the team is working on tasks that provide the most value. This will help you identify and eliminate tasks that don’t contribute to the project’s goals or customer satisfaction. Streamline processes and remove unnecessary steps to keep the team focused on value-adding activities.

By ensuring goal clarity and maintaining alignment on goals over sprints and quarters, your team can stay focused, efficient, and motivated. This structured approach helps in achieving project objectives and delivering products that meet or exceed customer expectations. Here’s a snapshot of one of Hatica’s dashboards that helps you set and track goals for individuals and at the team level as well.

Here’s where you can make the most use of capacity accuracy. 

Capacity accuracy is about understanding how much work your team can realistically deliver within a given time frame. It is measured by comparing the percentage of work delivered to the planned capacity. As an engineering leader, you want to be at 100% capacity accuracy i.e. planning exactly the quantum of work that the team can deliver - no more and no less. But getting a handle on the team’s capacity is not easy, because not all work items are of the same size and people’s productivity does ebb and flow naturally. 

I find it helpful to check in regularly with the team to see how things are going. This can also help you spot any problems early on and make changes to the plan. By doing this, you can keep projects moving forward and avoid promising more than you can deliver.

Velocity Issues

If speed is becoming a problem—like slow delivery cycles, delayed feature releases, or lengthy code reviews—here are some effective strategies to consider:

Plan Smaller Tasks

If your engineering team is facing delays because of complex projects, breaking these large projects into smaller, manageable tasks changes the scene! By setting clear, time-based events and triggers, you can keep your efforts focused and make it easier to estimate and track progress.

You can also use the MECE (Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive) principle to split tasks effectively.

This ensures that each task is unique and covers all necessary parts of the project without overlap. This method helps you stay organized and avoids redundancy.

Smaller tasks allow you to get quicker feedback. Instead of waiting for a big project to be finished, you get to review and adjust smaller parts as you go along. This helps you stay flexible and respond quickly to any changes or issues.

Another benefit is the steady pace of development achieved. When you’re not overwhelmed by a huge project, it’s easier to make consistent progress. Smaller tasks help you spot potential problems early and fix them before they become bigger issues. This approach keeps you and your engineering team’s momentum going and reduces the stress of long-term projects.

By planning smaller tasks and using the MECE principle, you create more efficient work.

Code Review Efficiency

Long review times can significantly slow down progress. In almost any project where review delays are causing a major bottleneck, it is equally frustrating for everyone involved. To address this, separate “Looks Good to Me” (LGTM) reviews from more in-depth reviews. Here, you break down the code into smaller chunks for these quicker reviews, while larger pieces receive more thorough scrutiny.

For asynchronous reviews, make sure to set the proper context and highlight the lines of code (LOC) that need attention. This approach streamlines the process, allowing reviewers to focus on specific areas without getting bogged down by the entire codebase. By segregating the reviews this way, you can expedite the review process within your engineering team and significantly reduce bottlenecks.

Switch Between Asynchronous and Synchronous Reviews

Depending on your team’s needs, switching between asynchronous and synchronous code reviews can greatly improve efficiency. We’ve discovered that asynchronous reviews worked exceptionally well for smaller tasks. This allows team members to review code at their own pace, without the pressure of immediate feedback. It is particularly beneficial for quick fixes or minor changes, as it keeps the workflow moving without constant interruptions.

On the other hand, for larger projects or more complex code changes, synchronous reviews prove to be invaluable. You can set up dedicated review sessions where team members can discuss the code. As an engineering leader, you want to be at 100% capacity accuracy i.e. planning exactly the quantum of work that the team can deliver - no more and no less. But getting a handle on the team’s capacity is not easy, because not all work items are of the same size and people’s productivity does ebb and flow naturally, ask questions, and resolve issues on the spot. This face-to-face interaction (or video calls for remote teams) facilitated deeper discussions and quicker resolutions of complex problems. It also helps in building stronger team cohesion as everyone is actively involved in the process.

The flexibility to switch between these two methods based on the task at hand significantly improves the workflow!

Quality Issues

Quality is a critical measure of engineering success. Here are ways to address quality problems:

Ensure QA Understanding

Quality assurance (QA) is far more effective when the QA team has a deep understanding of the product and feature functionality. In my experience, involving QA early in the development process makes a significant difference. 

By involving QA early on, you're giving them a front-row seat to the product's journey. They soak up all the essential details – the goals, user stories, and those tricky edge cases. With this understanding of the product, they can curate test plans that are precise and perfectly aligned with how real people use your product.

Plus, having QA on board from the beginning is like having an extra set of eyes on your code. They can quickly spot any mismatches between what was planned and what actually made it into the product. This proactive approach means fewer surprises down the line and a smoother development process overall. This means potential issues are identified and addressed before they become bigger problems, leading to more effective testing and higher-quality releases.

Measure Key Quality Metrics

Tracking key quality metrics provides valuable insights into your product's health and areas for improvement. Focus on these essential indicators:

• Bug Rate: Keep an eye on how often bugs are reported. This helps you spot recurring issues and problem areas that need more attention.

• Uptime: Track system uptime to ensure your product is consistently available. High uptime means your product is stable and reliable.

• Scalability: Measure how well your product handles more users and increased load. This helps you prevent performance issues as your user base grows.

• Code Quality: Monitor the quality of your code by tracking bugs found during code reviews and the amount of rework needed. Clean code is easier to maintain and less prone to errors.

By keeping an eye on these metrics, you'll be better equipped to maintain a high-quality product that's reliable and performs well. This not only improves the user experience but also strengthens your engineering team.

Promote End-to-End Accountability

To ensure consistent quality throughout development, make the engineering team directly accountable for product outcomes. Treat quality as a core engineering metric and integrate it into performance goals. You can measure quality using key indicators like bug rates, code coverage, and the frequency of critical issues. By making quality an engineering priority, you'll foster a culture of ownership and excellence and create an engineering team that takes pride in their work and strives for the best outcome in every release.

Developer Experience

A positive developer experience is essential for fixing a struggling engineering team. Only when developers are in the best of health and performance, you can build a high-performing engineering team? A key aspect of this is balancing the types of work assigned to developers and ensuring they are operating in a healthy engineering ecosystem. Here’s how you can achieve this balance:

Mix Bug Fixes, Tech Debt with New Work

Constantly working on bug fixes or dealing with tech debt can be monotonous and demotivating. Instead, combining bug fixes with new feature development keeps things interesting and challenges developers in different ways. Implementing a rotation system for developers to handle tech debt and contributing to new software development ensures everyone has a chance to contribute to both aspects of the product.

Maintain Context and Focus

Developers need time to delve deep into complex problems without constant interruptions. By creating focused work blocks (or maker time) and minimizing context switching, you empower them to deliver high-quality solutions. 

Understanding how your developers feel about their work is crucial for fixing and building a successful engineering team. Happy developers are more productive, creative, and likely to give their best.

• Optimal Frequency: Conduct sentiment checks at an optimal frequency to gather valuable feedback without overwhelming the team. This could be through monthly or quarterly surveys or even quick weekly check-ins.

• Feedback Tools and Methods: Use different tools and methods such as anonymous surveys, one-on-one meetings, and team retrospectives to get a comprehensive understanding of developer sentiment.

By regularly monitoring developer sentiment, you can create a positive and motivating environment for your engineering team. This approach not only keeps developers engaged and productive but also contributes to higher quality and more innovative products.

The steps mentioned here will help you course-correct and fix your struggling engineering. 

💡Additional Read: Building a High-Performing Engineering Team

The Bottom Line 

Remember, a struggling team doesn't mean all hope is lost. It simply means it's time to redirect your efforts and eliminate practices that no longer serve you or the team. The most successful engineering teams thrive on reflection, rework, and redirection.

Sometimes, you need to change direction to get back on track. This might mean shifting priorities, focusing on new goals, or even changing the way your team approaches problems. Redirection ensures that your team’s efforts are aligned with the overall goals of the organization and that everyone is moving forward with a clear purpose.

Our next blog will focus on how to measure and map the impact of the fixes you've implemented for your engineering team, and how to assess whether they have been successful. So, stay tuned for that blog as it will help you solve another piece of the puzzle. 

With this, we wrap the second blog in the series of building an engineering management program for building high-performing teams.

In the meantime, you can also reach out to our productivity experts for insights on fixing a struggling engineering team.