We’ve all felt the itch. You open a file to make a small change, and you’re immediately confronted with a mess. Maybe it’s legacy code that has overstayed its welcome, or an architectural pattern that creates friction every time you try to add a feature.
The instinct is to fix it. To overhaul the system until it is clean, modern, and “right.”
While this conscientiousness is a vital trait for senior engineers, there is a dangerous trap that lies between the urge to fix and the execution of that fix: The Big Bang Refactor.
In my latest article, I explore why smart teams fall into this trap and how it paralyzes delivery. It usually starts with the “Illusion of Control.” You intend to rewrite a single module, but software is rarely that contained. A change to authentication breaks the user model, which breaks reporting, which requires a library upgrade. Suddenly, you aren’t refactoring; you are unearthing an archeological dig site.
The Clinical Signs of Stagnation
When a team gets stuck in this mode, they stop shipping features to focus on “stabilization.” If you suspect your team is currently caught in this trap, look for these symptoms:
The “Long-Lived Branch” Syndrome: Feature branches stay open for weeks or months, requiring constant, painful rebases.
Fear of Deployment: Releasing to production feels like a military operation rather than a routine task.
The “One More Thing” Justification: Estimates slip week after week because of “one last edge case.”
Silence in the Metrics: Engineers are working hard, but the user-facing changelog is a flatline.
This paralysis is incredibly expensive. While the team is stuck in the mud of a “perfect” architecture that hasn’t shipped yet, value delivery hits zero and stakeholders lose trust.
The Solution: Build the Skill of Shipping
The best teams fight the urge to rewrite everything at once because they have developed a superior skill: Shipping.
We tend to view shipping as merely the final button press, but it is a discipline as complex and necessary as writing unit tests. If you want to move quickly, you must build the habit of shipping expediently.
This requires a shift in strategy toward “Aggressive Incrementalism.” You must break the work down until it fits in a single day and apply the Boy Scout Rule—cleaning the mess while you deliver value, rather than holding the value hostage for a perfect cleanup.
A messy system that is improved daily is infinitely easier to manage than a “perfect” system that is stuck indefinitely.
If this is striking a chord with your team, check out the full article about building the skill of shipping on your team.