Why scalability is no longer the recipe for success (and how we had to learn it the hard way)

In twenty years, we had set up our company step by step as a factory. Scalability was our mantra, efficiency our focus. Our biggest challenge? That wasn't finding customers, but finding good people to run all projects. We had it perfect: when we opened the windows, the orders flew in, so to speak.

The strategy seemed foolproof:

• Focus on customers with fixed annual budgets

• Set up a dedicated team there

• Deploy our optimized Agile process

• And let that run like a motorcycle for years

We found the perfect formula...

Until interest rates went up and our clients' innovation budgets suddenly dried up.

Literally overnight, the tone of conversations with customers changed. Where they used to enthusiastically plan for the next year, I now heard: “That's all great, Richard, but we've run out of budget.” Projects were postponed, budgets halved and those nice long-term contracts evaporated.

Only then did I realize how vulnerable we had become.

The problem was much deeper than just declining demand. By focusing on scalability, we had created an organization that knew only one trick. An organization that functioned wonderfully as long as market conditions remained stable, but which stalled as soon as something changed.

We had trained people as specialized factory workers. Everyone had their role: front-end, back-end, testing, UX. Everyone knew exactly what to do within our Agile framework. But when the market suddenly asked for a different approach - smaller projects, faster turnaround times, more flexibility - we did not have the answer.

You can't just shake a tree and then have three new big customers. You build up such customers slowly, just like you slowly optimize the teams and processes to serve them. And that was exactly what had become our problem.

It was the first time in twenty years that we had to reorganize. A painful but necessary wake-up call.

Agility as a survival strategy in the AI era

This reorganization was the starting point for the biggest transformation in the history of our company. Because while we were redesigning everything, we realized something even more important: AI would completely disrupt our work in the coming years.

We were faced with a fundamental choice. We were able to try to return to the old, scalable formula - assuming that the market disruption was temporary. Or we could use the crisis as a momentum for a much more radical change.

We chose the latter. If we're going to reorganize, we thought, we'll immediately reinvent ourselves for the AI era.

AI means that we have to reinvent ourselves several times a year

In the past, you had to reinvent your company just about every five to seven years. A new wave of technology, a change in the market, the rise of a new business model... Major changes came gradually and gave you time to adapt.

AI is completely upsetting that reality. The changes are incredibly fast and have an immediate huge impact.

If you then set up your business systems, processes and structures with the idea that you can work like this for a few years, you will be stuck irrevocably.

The solution? No longer focus your company on scalability, but on maximum agility.

How we implement agility in practice

Of course, agility has been a buzz word for some time. But what does that look like in practice? We are now using a simple but powerful test for all our choices: if I want to do this differently tomorrow, can I do it without much impact?

If the answer is “no”, we will choose another alternative.

We no longer choose the best tools

This may sound counterintuitive, but we're deliberately not choosing the best tools anymore. We choose the tools that we can replace.

We used to spend weeks trying to find the perfect development tooling. We analyzed all features, compared prices, tested different options and finally chose the tool that optimally suited our way of working. The investment in setting up and training was considerable, but we would use the system for at least three years.

Now we're taking a completely different approach.

We choose what is good enough and what is also the easiest way to change the weather.

We have moved away from our fixed Agile Scrum process

The most dramatic difference is how we approach projects. Where we used to work tightly according to one rigid Agile Scrum process for all projects, we now decide which approach works best for each project, and that is almost always an “AI-first project approach” these days.

In the past, our process was sacred. Always the same roles: front-end developer, back-end developer, tester, UX designer, product owner, scrum master. Always 2-week sprints. Always the same ceremonies: daily stand-ups, sprint planning, retrospectives. The system was optimized down to the last detail.

And it worked great until it stopped doing that.

Now, we are much more pragmatic. For one project, we choose tool X with language model Y for AI-driven code generation and work with one AI engineer who oversees the entire process. For the next project, we may use tool Y and language model Z and use a small team of specialists.

Every new project we decide again: what is the best way to achieve this result with the tools and knowledge we have now?

The human side: agility at the individual level

The biggest challenge of becoming agile isn't in your processes or tools. It's in your people.

Because how do you ensure that everyone can and wants to participate?

This is something we need to keep actively paying attention to. People should see constant change as an opportunity rather than a threat. Because for our company, which specializes in new technology, change is part of it. And, partly due to AI, that change is also accelerating.

How do we manage that?

• We share our enthusiasm during knowledge sessions.

• We give a stage to our “leading group”: the people who are at the forefront of applying new technologies.

• And we celebrate successes that we achieve together.

That helps.

I'm going to be honest: not everyone was immediately enthusiastic about our transformation. But now we have a team that is fully committed to it.

It is not the easiest way, but it is the only way 

The path we have taken is certainly not always easy. It requires a lot from everyone in the organization.

But it has also brought us a lot of opportunities. At the moment, we are an agile situation that works AI-first and delivers the latest AI solutions.

And it's going well. Very good. The results are now even better than when our oiled machine was still working perfectly.

We know: if we want to keep growing healthy, this is the only way we can take.

And there is a good chance that this also applies to you.

Learning from our lessons?

At Blis Digital, we've learned a great deal from this journey. And we are still gaining new insights every day.

We are not going to keep that experience and knowledge to ourselves. We are already helping several companies take the same steps.

Want to know how we can also help your organization become AI-first? I would love to hear from you!