When Teams Outgrow Their Roles

When platforms start to feel harder to work with, the first signs rarely appear in the technology. They show up in people.

Decisions slow. Ownership blurs. Confidence dips. As platforms grow at this pace, the way people work around them must evolve too.

When we review platforms with our clients, we rarely look at any single area in isolation. Instead, we take a balanced view across people, process, and technology, because sustainable scale depends on all three working together.

That said, we almost always start with people.

Not because technology or process are less important, but because people are usually where pressure shows up first. Before systems fail or processes break down, teams feel it. Decisions slow. Ownership blurs. Confidence dips.

That’s why this first article focuses on people. In the next parts of the series, we’ll explore how growth exposes process debt, and how stable technology can start to feel fragile under scale.

Together, they form a clearer picture of why platforms struggle, and what needs to be reviewed to support sustainable growth.

This pressure is not happening in isolation

Fast-growing tech firms in the UK are scaling at pace, not just in revenue, but in headcount. Lists of the country’s fastest-growing technology companies show tens of thousands of new roles created in recent years, with many organisations continuing to expand their teams to meet demand.

In our work with clients, we see this pattern repeatedly. In one recent engagement, a growing financial services platform began to feel riskier to change because decision ownership was unclear and delivery confidence had dipped, even though the underlying technology remained sound. This formed part of our work on strengthening a digital platform for scale and sustainability, where people-related pressures surfaced well before any technical failure became apparent.

Growth at this speed places real strain on people structures:

• Roles evolve faster than they are defined
• Responsibilities expand without clear ownership
• Teams grow quicker than shared understanding can keep up

Without deliberate attention, ownership blurs, dependency increases, and the human side of delivery becomes fragile long before the platform itself shows signs of strain.

In early-stage teams, roles are fluid. Knowledge is shared informally. Ownership is implied rather than documented, and for a long time, this works.

As platforms scale, however, that implicit understanding begins to break down. Teams grow, new roles appear, and specialisation increases. Without deliberate adjustment, responsibility becomes fragmented.

It’s important to stress that this isn’t about individual ability or performance. In most cases, the people involved are highly capable and doing their best within structures that haven’t yet evolved to match the scale of the platform.

Common signals include:

• Decisions slowing because ownership is unclear
• Key knowledge held by a small number of people
• Delivery risk increasing when individuals are unavailable
• Teams relying on workarounds rather than confidence

These are not performance issues. They are structural ones.

Over-reliance on individuals is one of the most common risks in growing platforms, and one of the hardest to address.

It often develops gradually. Certain people become the default point of reference for decisions, changes, or reassurance. Over time, progress begins to depend on their availability, rather than on clear ownership or shared understanding.

When this happens, the platform becomes fragile. Not technically, but operationally. Changes are delayed. Decisions are deferred. Teams hesitate without specific individuals present, even when the underlying work is well understood.

The cost isn’t just slower delivery. It shows up as increased cognitive load, reduced confidence, and an unspoken sense that moving forward carries more risk than it should.

Left unaddressed, this pressure becomes normalised. Teams work around it rather than addressing it directly, and the risk is quietly compounded if that knowledge sits with individuals who may one day move on.

What often looks like a people problem is usually a symptom of something broader.

Unclear ownership is rarely the root cause on its own. It is often reinforced by unclear processes, informal decision-making, or ways of working that haven’t evolved alongside the platform. Decision bottlenecks emerge not because people are unwilling to decide, but because it’s no longer obvious who should.

As platforms grow, the connections between people, process, and technology become tighter. Changes in one area inevitably affect the others. When those connections aren’t clearly understood, pressure tends to surface first in the human experience of the work.

In many cases, the fixes themselves are not complex. Simple clarity around roles and responsibilities, shared understanding of ownership, and better documentation of how work flows can make a significant difference.

What’s difficult is knowing where that clarity is missing and what needs to change.

This is why people-related challenges are often the earliest signal that it’s time to step back and look more closely at how work actually flows through the organisation, and whether the structures supporting it are still fit for purpose.

Source: Net tech employment in the UK reached an estimated 2.18 million in 2024, with continued growth expected (CompTIA State of the Tech Workforce UK 2025).