Leaders and Followers

There's the image of a man
who commands a high opinion
But he hides his hatred with a sheepish grin
and beside him, flanking closely
are the boisterous hollow masses
who lap up whatever trickles in

Bad Religion (Leaders and Followers)

Chris,

I've been doing a lot of therapy lately as you know. I mean a lot. Something to the effect of 18 hours a week of sit down in room therapy. One of the many things I've gotten from it is it's really hard to see things when you're going through it. I think you're so bogged down right now with the pace that you're missing some key factors. Which on the bright side means it's going to be easier than you think it is to get things back on track. Key part of that is easier than you think it is which definitely isn't the same as easy.

You mentioned the idea of speed in the sense of breaking things and fixing them and that's not helpful which it isn't for the most part, you've now hopefully gotten a new way of how not to do something and even more hopeful a set of test suites to not do that again. I don't think that's wasted speed, you're creating things, you're just not doing it in the direction the company wants.

You have speed and a lot of speed, just not velocity. Your team is doing a lot of work it's just not going in the direction the company is wanting which really has very little to do with the team and a lot to do with the directions given. Velocity in this term is not to be confused with the insert derogatory adjective here Agile metric.

You're noticing that the eleven people under your care are burning out at an alarming rate, which given the conditions isn't surprising. You also mentioned the rules of Gilman Street, which those aren't the rules, those were the environment. Which you mentioned that those are the conditions but then you give conditions that have nothing to do with the environment the team works in. "we do not ship breakage. We do not cut corners that shift work to the next team. We do not let one pillar project metastasize because it's blocking another one." Those are management mandates not rules, not anything to do with the environment the team works in.

Build projects around motivated individuals.
Give them the environment and support they need,
and trust them to get the job done.

Agile Manifesto (Principles behind the Manifesto)

The way I've seen it work when teams are in crunch mode. "We do not do anything that puts any one of our jobs in danger. We don't discredit team members for their input. Our goal as a team is to deliver working software that we are proud of."

Those set up a mutual goal that everyone should be able to agree on and then let the team start swarming on the project and figure out a plan of attack. You can't control what happens above you and the dictations from higher management, you can however make an environment where the team naturally and understandingly pulls together. Those rules about how we work as a team are much more important than things they may not have control over like we don't ship breakage. Bugs happen. Making a rule about it just adds to the frustration.

From what I can tell you're acting like an amazing manager to the eleven strangers on a bus. What the team needs though is a leader, either a servant one or an overt one. The difference between the two, a manager and a leader, is stark. Managers set mandates that tell the people what to do, Don't ship Bugs. Leaders create the environment for teams to learn how to not ship bugs.

Questions for you,

What are you doing to be a leader to the team?

What are you doing to help the team be more autonomous?

What are you doing to take care of yourself so that you don't burn out first trying to protect the team?

It's a shorter article in length but gives some deep things to think about.

I hope this helps.