The cost of recurring problems and how to stop paying for it.
Some problems look small until we realise that we keep paying for them week after week.
We say customer insight matters, but we don’t speak with our customers.
Our backlog is full, but nobody can tell us what is still relevant, who owns what or what no longer matters.
A minor process change would remove a daily frustration, but months later no decision has been made.
We agreed on the strategic objectives, but the team cannot see what they are meant to do differently tomorrow.
Recognise any of these?
These are different problems. They may have different causes too. But the same thing can happen: we deal with what is visible and stop before we understand what keeps bringing it back.
We update the backlog rules. We run another alignment meeting. We restate the strategy. The surface looks tidier for a while. Then the same kind of problem shows up again, in a slightly different shape, because what was actually causing it was never dealt with.
The cost builds up, often quietly.
The danger of the silent workaround
Sometimes we think a problem has been solved simply because nobody complains about it any more.
That can be an expensive assumption.
Because sometimes we have simply learnt to live with it.
We know the workaround. We know who to ask on the side, which extra alignment meeting to set up or which manual step is needed to get the work through.
The workaround quietly becomes part of the job.
The extra alignment meeting becomes a regular meeting. The manual step becomes part of delivery. We accept that work gets done twice.
And because the cost is spread across the organisation, it is easy to miss. We all keep the work moving. But we miss the chance to make things easier, faster and better.
Recurring problems often sit between teams
We fix what makes sense from where we sit. The recurring problem often sits in what happens between us.
One team is waiting for an answer. Another is waiting for a decision. A third is trying to keep delivery moving with the information it has. Everyone is responding to a real need, but how those actions connect is harder to grasp.
That is why a problem can survive for years, move between several owners and outlive several attempts to fix it before the wider pattern is noticed.
The backlog illusion
Take a backlog.
It’s easy to see it as a sorting problem: Clean it up. Prioritise it. Add stricter Jira rules.
But a few months later, it’s a mess again.
Are we simply bad at prioritising? Or is the backlog showing a deeper issue?
A messy backlog can be holding decisions that have not been made. Requests may come in through several routes. Old work may never be closed properly. Urgent commitments keep jumping the queue. Different teams may have different ideas about what matters, what is ready and what can actually be done.
The team may not have the authority, information or shared way of working needed to decide what should move forward and what should stop. The same need may even be logged in several backlogs because nobody is clear about who should own it.
The backlog then becomes a place to put things we do not know what to do with.
The visible problem is real. It is just not always the whole problem.
The question worth asking
Before deciding who should fix the latest version of the issue, ask:
- What keeps making this happen?
- What has become normal because we haven’t had the time, space or right room to question it?
- What else is connected to this problem?
- Who is dealing with the impact?
- Which decision or ownership is unclear?
- What will this cost if it is still here in six months?
Staying with these questions when pressure is high is disciplined curiosity in practice.
One team can often see enough to know that something is not working. But recurring problems usually need more than one view before we can understand what is really going on.
The people closest to the work, the decisions and the impact each see part of the picture. Until we bring those perspectives together, we can spend time and money solving different versions of the same problem without changing what keeps bringing it back.
Working across teams sounds simple: just work together.
Easy on paper. Harder in real work.
Priorities compete. Old frustrations remain. Authority may be unclear. Strong views can make it harder to see what is actually happening. Putting people in the same room is not enough.
The work is to bring together the people closest to the problem, along with someone who can make or unblock decisions. We make the problem specific, including why it is worth solving. We look at where and when it happens. We map what we are seeing, question assumptions and notice where the same issue is being recreated.
The aim is not perfect agreement. It is enough shared understanding to make a clear decision, name ownership and take a next move together.
Nobody needs another fancy diagram or long report that gets saved in a folder and forgotten.
The point is to make what keeps happening clear enough and decide what to do next.
When we see the real problem together, we can move forward more clearly.
Curious Creator Sprint
Are you carrying a problem that keeps coming back?
Bring one recurring problem to a 30-minute conversation. We will explore what is happening, who needs to be involved and whether the Curious Creator Sprint is the right next step.