There’s a significant difference between discussing engineering management principles in theory and applying them during real-world crises. This experience taught me valuable lessons about protecting your team while managing business pressure.

The Business vs. Quality Paradox

The Fundamental Truth

Business stakeholders will always prioritize speed over quality. This isn’t inherently wrong it’s simply how business operates. However, the responsibility for maintaining quality standards falls squarely on the engineering team and their managers.

The Wardrobe Analogy

Consider this: if you’ve ever looked behind a wardrobe after it’s installed, you’ll likely notice the wood quality at the back is quite poor. The carpenter knows customers will never see the back once it’s mounted on the wall. alt text

However, with premium furniture, manufacturers put care into every detail - including the parts you can’t see. This attention to hidden quality is what separates good from great.

The Crisis Scenario

The Situation

During our recent system recovery following a major incident that brought down multiple systems, we faced intense pressure to accelerate our restoration process. The recovery required manually kickstarting processes that were normally automated and well-orchestrated.

The Pressure Builds

  • Our systems were down, creating significant business impact
  • We needed extensive hand-holding for manual processes
  • Only one engineer had the necessary access permissions
  • That engineer was already working extra hours to “babysit” the systems

The Dangerous Request

As recovery progressed better than expected, stakeholders began questioning our cautious approach:

  • “Why are we being so conservative with customer value delivery?”
  • “The system is working and producing expected outputs”
  • “Why not double the processing speed?”
  • “Our customers have suffered enough downtime - let’s give them value faster!”

The Leadership Challenge

The Pressure Campaign

The pressure came from multiple directions:

  • Several engineering leaders supported the acceleration
  • The rationale seemed logical: “We’re in a critical period”
  • Customer impact was real and ongoing

Why I Chose Resistance

I decided against the aggressive acceleration approach for several critical reasons:

The People Problem

  • Engineers naturally want to help and will say “yes” to requests from senior leadership
  • In a tough tech market, individual contributors feel pressure to demonstrate value
  • The engineer would have committed to impossible hours and doubled workload
  • Incremental increases in manual work don’t scale linearly - each addition creates exponentially worse outcomes

The Better Approach: Strategic Questioning

The Conversation That Changed Everything

Instead of taking the issue to a larger meeting, I had a direct conversation with one of the directors. I proposed a different approach:

Instead of asking: “Can you do it or not?”
Ask instead: “If you were to do it, how would you do it?”

Why This Works

This reframing accomplishes two crucial things:

  1. Forces Detailed Thinking: The engineer must think through all required steps, even if this means lets take it away and get back to you
  2. Brings Leadership into Reality: You’re pulled into their world instead of speaking from an “ivory tower of ignorance”

The Benefits

  • You can participate in the thinking process
  • Help make informed trade-offs
  • Identify unnecessary steps
  • Sometimes conclude that the aggressive approach doesn’t make sense
  • Apply your experience to guide decisions

The Outcome

Success Through Understanding

The director understood the situation once they grasped the real complexity involved. We successfully avoided what could have been a major disaster.

The Hidden Costs We Avoided

Even if we had delivered on the business goals, the negative outcomes would have included:

  • Severe impact on engineer wellbeing and future work capacity
  • Increased risk of human errors
  • Engineers potentially hiding mistakes due to pressure

Key Takeaways for Engineering Managers

  • Quality responsibility sits with engineering - Business will always push for speed
  • Protect your team from impossible commitments - They will say yes even when they shouldn’t
  • Use strategic questioning - “How would you do it?” instead of “Can you do it?”
  • Bring stakeholders into reality - Help them understand the true complexity
  • Consider hidden costs - Fast delivery today might create bigger problems tomorrow
  • Trust your experience - Sometimes the conservative approach is the right approach