Slow progress on feature development?

What do you do if it feels like your tech team is slow to deliver?

Diagnosing what's wrong in situations like this can be challenging for a non-tech founder or business owner. Are your demands unreasonable? Or is the tech team just not good enough?

The first step is to sit down and listen to the tech team. What are they telling you about why things are taking so long? Some of the common causes might be:

• Shifting priorities. Even if you think you're only making small changes, the implementation in code might be very different.
  

• Different understanding. How you think of a product feature might not be how your developers see it; differences in language, culture and background can all contribute here.
  

• Unclear accountability. Is there more than one person asking for features or changes? If so, the team may struggle to prioritise which to tackle first or try to do everything simultaneously, leading to confusion and slowness.

  
  

• Technical debt. If your code base is over a few years old, you may have accumulated sufficient 'technical debt' that development in certain areas is slower than it should be.
  

• Lack of people. Your tech team may not have enough people or not have the right skills to achieve your vision.

The good news is that these are all solvable. However, it will almost certainly take some time to see the results, and it will likely require work both inside and outside the tech team to resolve them.

You can start the process by gathering the tech team and key stakeholders to discuss the challenges. Share the business goals and why they're a priority—everyone, including developers, likes to know that what they're doing matters. 

Once you've shared the challenges and goals, ask everyone to contribute ideas. You'll likely need compromises on both sides, but the good news is that developers love solving problems, so this almost always finds an acceptable way forward.

If this sounds like you and you'd like help and support getting your tech team back on track, I can help. I'm a tech professional with over 25 years of experience, and I specialise in working with non-tech founders and owners of SMEs in the UK.