A common misconception is adding more people will speed things up. Often this can lead to only marginal gains and 𝘮𝘢𝘺 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘴𝘭𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘥𝘰𝘸𝘯 by exacerbating existing inefficiencies.

Here are some of the common reasons why 👇

🚧 Key person dependencies – bottlenecks on particular individuals.

🤖 Lack of automated testing – resulting in lengthy (and error prone) manual testing required for each release.

🧩 Complex code – significant effort often required even for small changes.

🎯 Lack of clear prioritisation and focus – trying to do too much at the same time and regularly shifting priorities meaning everything goes more slowly 🐌.

❓ Unclear requirements – resulting in a high change failure rate and lots of re-work.

🤝 Lack of collaboration – working as a group of individuals rather than a team – exacerbating bottlenecks on key individuals and roles.

🎓 Low talent density – skill gaps and lack of familiarity with modern best practices, unable to 𝘥𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘥 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬 𝘵𝘰 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘴𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘦 (edit: added)

If you’re experiencing some of the challenges above, I generally recommend focusing on improving how your existing team operates 𝘣𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦 adding more people (which might mean temporarily bringing in specialist support to address specific skills gaps).

The double benefit is in the short term, you get a greater impact from your existing team, and when you do decide to grow, it will increase the impact of any new roles you bring in.

As I’ll regularly say, 𝘥𝘰 𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴, 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 and 𝘴𝘭𝘰𝘸 𝘥𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘶𝘱.