FailHub helps people avoid mistakes by learning from others who already made them.
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Every week, FailHub covers three real failures from three different people working in tech, each with their own experience and perspective.
Let’s start with the first one. Enjoy ☺️
What happened
The project started great. Requirements were clear, we had a rough plan, and everyone seemed aligned. The scope was “mostly agreed on”, good enough, let’s go.
Then it started. Someone would add a “small clarification” here, the team would decide, “since we’re doing this anyway, let’s make it a bit better” there. Each change looked minor, but our target kept getting fuzzier. We kept working, but where we were headed became less and less clear.
At some point, it became obvious: we were doing extra stuff. Instead of quickly solving the business problem, we got stuck on details nobody needed. We polished quality where speed mattered. We chose what felt “technically right” instead of what was actually needed.
The problem wasn’t that the scope changed, that’s ok. The problem was pretending it wasn’t changing. Work kept getting added quietly, and the team just accepted it without pushback.
I also realized something important: team flexibility is often measured by how easily they take on extra work. When a technical team says yes to everything, it signals “we have no limits.” But that kind of “flexibility” usually ends badly, with lost focus and poor results.
The technical team understands real constraints better than anyone: time, people, quality. When there’s no pushback, the business doesn’t see a problem. Not because they don’t care, but because they think everything’s fine.
The lesson
Clear boundaries and clear goals make teams stronger. When everyone knows what we’re building, why it matters, and when it’s due, work flows better. When the scope starts growing, you can’t stay quiet. You need to call out what’s changing and how it’ll impact the outcome.
Open dialogue helps everyone make better decisions: shift priorities, add people, cut scope, or adjust quality expectations. When boundaries are clear and defended, they stop getting pushed, because everyone wants an effective team and the right result.
What happened
I ran into a problem that didn’t look like a problem at first. Everything seemed smooth: requirements mostly clear, priorities set, deadlines agreed. In meetings, stakeholders nodded, the team agreed, and barely any questions.
We moved fast, nothing slowed us down. No debates, no clarifications, no resistance. It felt like everyone shared the same Definition of Done.
The problem surfaced later. When we showed the “finished” result, it became clear: everyone had their own idea of what “done” meant. For some, it meant the feature worked in the main scenario. For others, it meant tests written, edge cases handled, UI polished, analytics added, docs ready, and everything production-ready.
We never aligned on this upfront. The Definition of Done was either too vague or only existed in people’s heads. So we technically “completed” the task, but in reality were far from expectations.
Worst part? We realized this too late. Fixing the gaps required rework, delayed the release, and damaged trust. From the team’s perspective, the work was done. From the business perspective, it wasn’t.
The lesson
First, the Definition of Done must be explicit and measurable. Not just “done,” but what that actually means: quality, testing, UX, analytics, acceptance criteria.
Second, meetings aren’t enough. Plan work to focus on showing progress, not just talking about it. Frequent demos of completed parts help a lot. If a task is big, break it into the smallest possible pieces. After each step, show a demo: what’s done, what challenges came up, what’s next, are we still on track?
This way, feedback comes early, when it’s still cheap and safe to change direction, not at the very end when it’s too late.
What happened
In one project, core logic was built on top of an old library. It was deeply integrated into the system and relied on a massive wrapper class packed with business logic.
At some point, this started bothering me. I believed business logic belonged in view models, not inside a giant wrapper. From an architecture standpoint, this felt cleaner and more correct. I started moving logic out of the wrapper, splitting responsibilities, and reshaping the code toward something that looked better on paper.
The result was the opposite of what I expected. The code got more complex. More dependencies, harder to follow data flow, the system loses clarity. Instead of improving maintainability, I made it worse. The architecture looked cleaner in theory, but in practice, it worked against us.
The issue wasn’t that the wrapper class was perfect. It was far from ideal, but it did its job. I tried applying architectural principles without respecting the context and real constraints of the project.
The lesson
You can't make architectural decisions in a vacuum. You need to consider the project's age, its dependencies, the team, the pace of change, and actual business goals. Sometimes an imperfect but stable solution beats a formally correct one that makes the system harder to work with.
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What would you have done differently?