I have this new approach. But it only works in perfection…
Organizational change should be a dial—not a switch.
I’ve been experimenting with a new approach lately. It’s elegant, modern, and ambitious. But it only really works… if everything goes perfectly.
You’ve probably seen similar patterns with the latest “real” continuous delivery setups:
You work in pairs and perform continuous code reviews.
You commit directly to the main branch.
Your changes are tested—but only your own microservice. God forbid that you test it together with other services.
The changes are deployed directly to production. Of course, everything is covered by perfect and all-encompassing integration and end-to-end tests.
If something fails, the changes are automatically reversed.
Naturally, all your database migrations are designed to be fully backwards-compatible.
Sounds like a great plan—if all the planets are aligned.
But let’s be honest: how often are the planets aligned?
My impression is that many of these approaches share a common characteristic: the relationship between how well you implement the process and the benefit you get isn’t continuous—or even linear. It’s more like a discontinuous jump function. You’re either doing it perfectly or you’re in trouble.
I’ve seen this dynamic before, often involving coaches or consultants:
You pay a hefty price.
You allocate significant capacity across your team.
You’re proud of reaching 90% adoption of the new model.
Then something breaks. Everything falls apart.
And the coach says: “Well, it’s not working because you missed this minor detail.”
They often come armed with a collection of wise-sounding quotes:
“I can show you the door. I can even open it for you. But you have to go through it yourself.”
“Sometimes it must get worse before it gets better.”
“Maybe the downtime of your production system isn’t a technical problem. Maybe it’s a symptom of your mindset."
Sure, some systems in life are truly binary. You’re either pregnant or you’re not. There’s no such thing as being a little bit pregnant.
But most organizational changes should yield continuous output based on continuous input. You put in 20% effort, you get a return. You put in 50%, and you get even more return. That’s how most real-world systems—and the Pareto Principle—work.
So if a new approach requires complete adherence before it delivers any results, it’s worth pausing.
Because then, you’re no longer optimizing. You’re gambling.
And if it really is a binary system, then the risk-reward ratio must be evaluated carefully. Otherwise, you might find yourself in a situation where you’ve invested everything and get nothing—because one minor clause wasn’t fulfilled.
What’s your take on approaches that only work when done 100% right?