Fads Do Not Last
TL;DR:Management fads rise and fall on a 5-7 year cycle. Spotify Model is generating consulting work from failed adoptions. SAFe has a long tail because of sunk training costs. Team Topologies will fail fast — it just renames existing teams and justifies the status quo without changing underlying dynamics.
These days, most of my org consulting work comes from failed adoptions of the so-called "Spotify Model" — how adaptive is that model, really? It seems it takes 5 to 7 years for a management fad to rise and fall unless it solves underlying organizational problems and changes the negative dynamics. Most fads don't.
SAFe has been falling already for quite some time. Yet it has a slightly different trend of a very long tail. That is due to the high investments in trainings and licenses companies were told they needed to purchase to "become agile". But it is failing nevertheless, and it will generate enough work for most of us for the next 10 years to dismantle those constructs.
Team Topologies is on the rise. But I don't think it will have a long tail on decline. It will fail drastically. Why do I think so? Unlike Spotify and SAFe, TT doesn't really change much — it just gives fancy names to existing teams and justifies whatever there is. As I argue in How Adaptive are Team Topologies?, it also misses a crucial team type entirely.
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Alexey Krivitsky
Co-author of 10X ORG and co-creator of Org Topologies. Helps organizations rethink, redesign & rewire themselves for the AI era — from the codebase to the boardroom.
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