Articles on engineering structure, delivery, and the organisational problems that show up when technology teams try to scale. Longer pieces live on orchiture.com; shorter pieces and personal reflections start here.
The writing is an attempt to make visible things that are true about engineering organisations but rarely named precisely enough to act on. Most practitioners already recognise the problems described here. The goal is to give them language for what they are already seeing.
From orchiture.com
Performative Scrum Syndrome · 01
The standups happen. The board gets updated. None of this is the same as delivering predictably. When Scrum is running but delivery confidence is not improving, the instinct is to look at the ceremonies. This article names a different problem: the structural conditions that Scrum assumes are absent, and the ceremonies cannot create the conditions they depend on.
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Performative Scrum Syndrome · 02
The velocity chart is rising. The sprint review produces a demo. The backlog has items stretching months into the future. None of this is the same as delivering the most valuable thing. When the team is completing work but the business is not getting what it most needs, the instinct is to improve the ceremonies. This article names a different problem: value-based prioritisation requires structural conditions that most governance models actively prevent, and no amount of better planning can create what the authority structure does not permit.
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Scaling
At fifteen engineers, the team self-organises. At fifty, that same informality collapses — and the coordination machinery installed to replace it consumes the time it was meant to protect. The problem isn't the people or the process. It's the structure nobody redesigned when the engineering team doubled.
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