When you see the politics behind tech leadership it can be hard to unsee it. Everything is always the previous leadership’s fault, and whatever hot new methodology or design pattern is the current buzzword will solve all the problems that could possibly come up in the future. Everyone knows reality will be much more complicated than implied, but then whoever is working on that code when it happens to fall apart will take the blame. Activity and irrelevant metrics will drive how successful people think the project is, regardless of whether any customers are actually getting helped.

It’s hard to solve for these problems because that tone comes from the top, but trusting people and removing toxic personalities is a good start. Every successful team I’ve been on had a focus on the customer and the end goal and didn’t let politics get in the way of solutions.