Hi,

Nervousness sliced through the room. I saw it in the eyes of all attendees.

It was supposed to be just a routine meeting.

Once a week, the development team meets with the admins to discuss current topics.

This meeting has been held for years.

Same time, same people, (almost) the same topics.

But something was different this time.

A new colleague participated for the first time. An external.

We brought him in to work on “DevOps”. Mainly automation. CI/CD, provisioning, tooling, compile-time optimizations. Everything that improves the developer experience.

He was directly commissioned by the Head of Engineering.

And he came with a statement:

“We need to dissolve the boundary between Dev and Ops. What if we integrate the admins into the development team?”

As you read this, it may sound harmless.

But it wasn’t for the employees present.

The current team structure had been solidified for over a decade.

Everyone was accustomed to this structure.

Everyone had found their place — their comfort zone — within this structure.

And suddenly, this was being questioned.

This idea triggered panic. Insecurity. Concerns.

The idea is correct. And good.

For many years, this concept has been propagated and practiced in the literature, at conferences, and in online communities.

The idea sparked fear

It came too quickly. The colleagues were not yet ready in their world to come to this conclusion on their own.

They had settled into the current structure. They had learned to live with all the difficulties arising from this structure and to deal with them.

They had built up resistance.

Maybe you have experienced this too. Maybe you’re in a leading role in a new team yourself. Or perhaps you’re a consultant and new to a project.

You have different ideas. You have been dealing with different structures for years, you have led and followed many discussions. And you have long had the entire context for your conclusion in mind.

The colleagues do not have the context

Your task is to lead the team to the necessary decision. This does not mean imposing the decision. It means developing it together with the team.

You need to build trust. You need to let the team recognize the difficulties in the current structure. And you must let the team develop the solution independently.

Only in this way can you create acceptance, trust, and motivation.

Sometimes it’s better to hold back an idea. Wait for the right moment. And help your colleagues come to the same conclusion.

Even if it is more laborious.

Rule the Backend,

~ Marcus