In software development, there is a particular failure mode that looks deceptively calm from the outside. The team is busy, sprints are running, demos are happening. Yet progress has stalled. New features are no longer appearing, delivery slows down, and every iteration turns into another round of defect fixing.
At some point, both the client and the team start feeling uneasy. Something is clearly wrong, but it’s not always obvious what exactly caused the problem — or how to get out of it without making things worse.
This article is about that situation. About the moment when a team slips into a cycle of fixing defects instead of delivering value, and about the concrete, practical steps needed to escape it. Not short-term “heroic” fixes, but structural changes that restore trust, momentum, and predictable delivery.
How the Problem Reveals Itself
From a manager’s or client’s perspective, the first clear signal usually appears during sprint demos.
Instead of showcasing new functionality, the team demonstrates that something which was previously broken now works as expected. A screen is opened, a workflow is shown, and the message is essentially: “This used to be faulty, and now it’s fixed.”
The issue is not that defects are being fixed — that’s necessary work. The issue is that this is presented as progress.
For the client, this is frustrating. What they see is not innovation or forward movement, but the product merely reaching the state it should have been in already. Over time, these demos stop feeling reassuring and start feeling irritating. Trust erodes, even if no one says it out loud.
Inside the team, the picture is just as bleak. Developers feel stuck, motivation drops, and each new change feels risky. Any attempt to add functionality triggers new defects elsewhere. The system becomes fragile, and development slowly turns into damage control.
Why Teams End Up Here
This situation rarely appears overnight. It is usually the result of several factors reinforcing each other over time.
One of the most common causes is accumulated technical debt. Early compromises made for speed start to compound. Code becomes harder to change, tests are missing or unreliable, and even small modifications require disproportionate effort.
Another major contributor is weakened quality discipline. Under delivery pressure, teams skip test coverage, rush integrations, or treat defects as something to “deal with later”. Eventually, “later” arrives — and it consumes entire sprints.
There is also a management dimension. Often, teams are shielded from broader project concerns. Defects are treated as a delivery or stakeholder problem, not as something the team needs to fully own. As a result, developers focus on output rather than outcomes, and the system slowly degrades.
Finally, architectural blind spots play a role. Certain modules or components become hotspots for defects. Instead of addressing the root cause, teams keep patching symptoms, creating a growing maintenance burden.
Step One: Diagnose Before You Treat
When a team is already stuck in this cycle, the worst possible move is to pretend it will resolve itself. It won’t.
The first necessary step is an honest diagnosis. The team needs to understand the real scope of the problem. How many defects are there? Where are they concentrated? Which ones actively block progress, and which ones are merely inconvenient?
This isn’t about blaming anyone. It’s about seeing the system clearly. Without understanding the true volume and nature of the work required to stabilise the product, planning becomes fiction.
Once the problem space is visible, defects must be prioritised. Critical issues that prevent reliable delivery come first. Less important problems can wait. The goal is not perfection — the goal is to reach a state where new features can be delivered without triggering cascades of new defects.
Step Two: Fix the System, Not Just the Symptoms
At this stage, teams often discover something uncomfortable: some problems cannot be fixed incrementally.
If a particular module keeps generating defects, it may be cheaper and safer to rewrite or replace it entirely. This is a radical option and it doesn’t apply often — but when it does, it can eliminate entire classes of problems at once.
Similarly, grouping related defects often reveals structural flaws. In some cases, creating a single, well-designed component to replace multiple fragile implementations can dramatically improve stability.
This requires a clear understanding of the system’s architecture and an honest assessment of how it evolved. Without that, teams remain trapped in endless patching.
You Can’t Move Forward Without Stopping the Bleeding
One uncomfortable truth must be stated clearly: without reducing defects, feature delivery will not recover.
You cannot ignore defects and “push through” to new functionality. That approach is exactly what caused the situation in the first place.
The work has two parallel goals. First, reduce the existing defect load to a manageable level. Second, change the process so new defects stop flowing in while you’re fixing the old ones.
If you only do the first, you’ll end up back in the same place a few months later.
Defects Are Everyone’s Responsibility
This is where many teams struggle the most.
Defects are often perceived as a management issue, a client issue, or a delivery issue. That mindset has to change. Defects are a team issue, and every developer owns them.
From this point on, a feature must not be considered “done” if it contains defects. This requires a repair of the development process itself: clearer acceptance criteria, stricter integration rules, and a definition of done that actually means done.
Quality cannot be inspected in at the end. It has to be built in. If this sounds expensive, it’s because ignoring it is far more expensive — just delayed.
Rebuilding Trust with a Plan
By the time a team reaches this stage, trust is usually already damaged. There is no “trust credit” left.
The only way forward is transparency and a clear plan. The client needs to see that the situation is understood and that there is a concrete strategy to exit it.
That plan should include a temporary shift in delivery focus. Yes, fewer features will be delivered for a while. But this is not stagnation — it’s controlled recovery.
To make this visible, measurable indicators are essential. Defect counts per sprint, stability metrics, reduced regression rates — these KPIs allow the client to observe real progress instead of relying on promises.
As defects gradually stop dominating sprint scope, confidence begins to return. Not because someone asked for patience, but because the data supports it.
The Outcome: Sustainable Progress
When done properly, this transition changes more than delivery speed.
Teams regain confidence. Developers stop fearing changes. Demos return to showcasing new value instead of damage repair. Most importantly, the system becomes resilient enough to support future growth.
The key lesson is simple but uncomfortable: progress is not about moving fast at the start. It’s about building a system — technical and organisational — that keeps moving without breaking itself.
If a team finds itself stuck fixing defects sprint after sprint, it’s not a failure. It’s a signal. And with the right diagnosis, discipline, and courage to change the process, it’s a solvable one.
About the author
Oleksii Smirnov is a software development expert with over 30 years of hands-on experience in the industry. Throughout his career, he has worked across the full spectrum of software delivery — from writing production code to leading development teams, managing complex projects, and designing system architectures for long-lived products.
He is the Director of Software Planet Group and lives and works in London. Oleksii combines deep technical expertise with a strong understanding of delivery processes, quality, and team dynamics. His work focuses on helping teams build sustainable development practices, eliminate structural defects in systems and processes, and restore predictable, value-driven delivery in complex software projects.
