Organisational Creep
Francis Fukuyama has this concept. It's called organisational decay.
Just like how rocks weather over time, you'd say that states also experience progressive decay as they fail to adapt to the changing times. And I'd similarly argue that firms, too, are subject to this. Firms too are weathered down by the forces of the market. New and agile companies, shifting geopolitics and a slew of new additions/subtractions in the product portfolio, all lead to the gradual death of a company.
And yes, this post is because we started using Zoho Sprints.
Look I'm all for India. Sarvam's products? Amazing. August AI? Yes, beautiful. But Zoho? That shit should burn and die.
It's such poorly made software, I can't even. The fact that I compare it to Kodo should be an insult to Zoho. If Kodo is dogshit, Zoho is just marginally better.
And it's also so counterintuitive? I mean, we are a team of 15-20 people. Why the hell do we need something that medium-large entreprises use? Why can't all communication be done on Slack?
Read that again. Team of 15 and using Zoho Sprints. The same shit used by large enterprises is being used by a team of 15. It's stupid to the levels unimaginable.
A waste of 6k per month. Why was it done? Because the founders want to invest in unnecessary requirements.
Look, I'm not denying that they have experience. They are smart and great. But they are taking advice from someone who just doesn't know how to run an organisation. It's stupid to relegate tasks to be monitored via a platform when all of the engineers sit side-by-side. It's pointless to post resumes on Zoho when,
a) You don't even return to them. b) You don't even receive so many applications.
Do you see how pointless purhcases are made?
The problem is that they are providing undue attention to what the Software Lead is saying, and what he's imparting is definitely advice that is akin to putting a bandage on someone with cancer.
Let me just contextualise the problem better.
Tracking projects was getting tough. Okay. So, going by a first-principles level, I was able to identify the following causes:
- Lack of ownership
- Lack of time-bound deadlines
Which is 100% true and what they've diagnosed too. We are facing these crucial issues. The founders/lead of software are right in identifying this. However, buying software to resolve this is where the problem arises.
To address this, it'd be easier for the team instead to assign accountability, organize daily stand-ups and establish deadlines. That's it.
But Why buy Zoho Sprints and unnecessarily burden the team further?
From my understanding, it's simple. Remove any possibility of friction between the employee and his work.
Software, location, device constraints or licenses. It's not the devs' job to worry about it. You pay him to code greatness. That's all that he needs to focus on.
Compartmentalising their work is what the founder needs to do. Assigning them a piece to complete and holding them accountable is what a founder needs to do. By adding more software and adding more layers of complexity, you just proceed to add friction between the employee and their work. This leads to organisational creep.
All above might be a system of me rambling. But I think it captures what I want to say about organisational creep.
It's the tendency of a company to lose its vitality over time. It's the tendency of the company to evolve from a fast-growing startup to a slow giant. To oppose this behaviour, Brian Chesky argues, is what founder mode is. However, organisational creep is dangerous. It can be brought about by nefarious means, promulgating unsavoury practices and behaviours from elsewhere, adding more friction to an employee's platter or by just impeding the initial velocity of the firm. It can be as trivial as not washing your hands after eating a meal or leaving cutlery disgustingly on your workbench.
In my mind, the founders set the culture, velocity and vitality of the firm when they start building the product. A non-tech founder building a tech product out of sheer will brings talent of grit, curiosity and ambition to the company. Now each hire to the team effectively brings a new set of principles which may complement/contrast the company's DNA. And it's the founder's duty to pushback on it if it adds negative value.
After the first hire, his duty revolves around preserving what the company stood for.