De-systeming your system - a hidden cost of layoffs and what to do about it

Here is a pattern that seems to be common:

  1. You have 100 engineers that build a great product.
  2. There are great promises of growth, so you hire 100 more engineers.
  3. Your 200 engineers build lots of new infrastructure and services and libraries, oh my.
  4. Growth doesn't pan out and you lay off 100 engineers.
  5. Remaining 100 engineers are left with 200 engineers' worth of infrastructure, services, libraries - oh my.
  6. Sadness, strain, and seeking other employment; bewilderment at how everything has slowed to a crawl.
You have experienced the outcomes of being 'over-systemed', and the only practical cure is 'de-systeming'.  Awkward terms perhaps, but it's not complicated - every piece of software you have incurs decay, and that decay - left unchecked - will amplify risk, inflate COGS (cost of goods sold) and operating costs, and generally produce a huge psychological burden on the remaining employees.

So, if you'd like to improve morale post-layoffs, pursue de-systeming. 
  • Maybe it's time to make the decision to shut off the legacy system supporting one beloved-but-low-revenue customer.  (protip: it was time probably 2yrs ago)
  • Audit your org for duplication of effort - how many logging systems do you really need?
  • Is that rando report automation tool that just broke and will take a week to fix still needed?  (Really? Be honest.)
  • Where would your security team love to see improvements - what are your worst security offenders?  Maybe there's a better path - the best risk reduction is deletion! (only slightly tongue-in-cheek - see first item)
  • Where are your noisiest alerts?  Toil is a facet of over-systeming; it's a doubling or tripling or more of human effort for no gain. (the socio is hard to see, but extremely impactful to change)
  • What does your engineering team see as the greatest burden? (go to gemba!)
While this principle is extremely not-complicated, it definitely requires resolve to follow through on.  I think the outcomes of pursuing de-systeming are self-evident, no?  Up to you!

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Note: hahaha obviously it's not so easy/simple - but at the same time, maybe it kinda is!
Thanks to Omeed for pushing me to write this down.

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