"Caught in the middle? You're not alone."

The bug made it to production.
It blocked a critical daily task. Senior leadership wanted answers.

“How did this happen?”
“What testing are we even doing?”

I felt the pressure, not just to explain, but to assign blame. Fast.

But I also knew the developer who caused the issue was now fixing it, and they were moving fast. So I held back the inquiry, let them finish. We needed resolution before reflection.

Later, I asked them to walk through what happened.

They were defensive at first, saying the stakeholder had signed off too. It wasn’t just their responsibility.

But we couldn't get away from the fact that the issue was visible in QA. It should have been caught there, and with adequate attention to detail it could have been caught before saying it was dev complete.

But I didn’t want this to become a trial. I wanted it to become a team lesson. So I acknowledged their points, pointed out the shared responsibility, and said, “Let’s treat this as something we can all learn from, not something to pin on anyone.”

That softened the conversation. They began to reflect. Eventually:
“Yeah… I could’ve done more to make sure this didn’t get through.”

I asked them to bring the story to the team. Not as a warning, but as a way to learn together, to stop this from happening again.

Here’s the thing:
When mistakes happen, we’re managing more than just the incident.
We’re managing two opposing forces:
➡️ Leadership’s need for answers
➡️ The team’s need for safety

Even the gentlest inquiry can feel like blame to the person closest to the mistake. Time your questions, and hold the space with care.

Until next time,
Dermot
​The Messy Middle

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