"When safety creates helplessness"
Last time I wrote about the release manager who became the shock absorber for every risky deployment. But here’s the harder question: why did we create that role in the first place? On paper, it seemed sensible. Releases were risky. A central role to manage them promised efficiency and safety. In practice, it encouraged the opposite. Developers grew detached from production. They relied on the release manager to carry the weight. Over time, ownership drained away. What started as a move to reduce risk created an environment of babysitting and learned helplessness. The release manager wasn’t empire building. They were simply acting out the script we’d handed them: “Your job is to make releases safe, no matter what.” And the only way to live up to that was to take on more, to do more, to hold more. It’s a reminder that the structures we put in place don’t just shape the work. They shape the behavior around the work. A role designed to protect can, unintentionally, remove the very responsibility that makes a system safe. Until next time, ✉️ Enjoying The Messy Middle? If someone sent this email your way and you’d like to get it direct, you can sign up here. |