The workaround solved a temporary problem. Nobody noticed when it became the operating model.
There comes a point in many organisations where nobody refers to the workaround as temporary anymore. It has simply become how work gets done.
There is a point in many organisations where nobody refers to the workaround as temporary anymore. It simply becomes how work gets done.
Nobody deliberately redesigns the operating model. There is rarely a formal decision, an announcement or a documented change. A short-term adjustment survives long enough to become accepted, and over time new colleagues inherit it as though it has always existed.
The original workaround was probably the right decision at the time. A supplier missed a deadline, a system could not support a process, approval pathways slowed delivery or a manual check prevented a more expensive failure. Creating an alternative route kept work moving.
The real risk begins when nobody returns to remove it.
What started as a sensible response to an isolated problem gradually becomes part of everyday operations, often without anyone recognising that the organisation itself has changed.
What this usually looks like in practice
These situations rarely develop because of one major operational weakness. They emerge through the accumulation of dozens of small adjustments.
Teams maintain separate spreadsheets because the reporting platform still cannot provide reliable information.
Approvals are chased manually because automated workflows no longer reflect how decisions are actually made.
Additional meetings appear to coordinate activity that the original operating model was designed to coordinate automatically.
Operational knowledge gradually becomes concentrated around a handful of experienced individuals who know which unofficial steps are needed to keep work flowing.
Viewed individually, each workaround appears reasonable.
Taken together, they create an informal operating model sitting alongside the official one. As that hidden model expands, more organisational effort is absorbed simply keeping activity moving rather than improving outcomes.
Work remains visible.
Progress becomes increasingly difficult to build.
Why this quietly becomes expensive
Temporary fixes are designed to reduce immediate disruption. Their unintended consequence is that they also reduce the visibility of the underlying problem.
Because delivery continues, leadership receives fewer signals that the original constraint still exists. Activity remains high, milestones continue to move and the organisation appears productive, even though increasing amounts of effort are being spent compensating for unresolved weaknesses.
Over time, teams become highly skilled at working around friction instead of eliminating it.
More coordination is required.
More checking becomes necessary.
More manual intervention finds its way into routine delivery.
Very little of that effort appears in project plans or operational reporting, yet all of it consumes capacity that could otherwise create value.
Eventually every new initiative inherits those same hidden costs.
Instead of scaling capability, the organisation begins scaling compensation.
Why it often goes unnoticed
The transition rarely arrives as a dramatic event.
Each workaround solved a genuine problem when it was introduced, making every individual decision appear rational. There is seldom a compelling reason to stop delivery simply to remove a process that still appears to function.
The cumulative effect tells a different story.
Processes take longer because additional steps have quietly accumulated. Dependencies become harder to understand as unofficial routes develop around formal governance. Responsibility gradually blurs as experienced individuals bridge gaps that the organisation no longer notices.
Eventually, delivery confidence depends less on resilient systems and more on the people who understand the unofficial way things now operate.
By the time leaders recognise the pattern, many temporary measures have become culturally embedded. They are no longer questioned because they no longer feel temporary.
The commercial consequence
The greatest cost is rarely the manual work itself.
The more significant impact is the organisation’s declining ability to convert effort into meaningful progress.
Projects require increasing coordination simply to maintain momentum.
Operating costs rise because more people become involved in activities that were never intended to exist.
Decision-making slows as confidence in information, ownership and process gradually weakens.
Improvement initiatives become progressively harder because every proposed change must navigate a growing network of unofficial practices that nobody consciously designed.
From the outside, the organisation often appears busy and productive.
Internally, an increasing proportion of available capacity is being consumed simply sustaining today’s level of performance.
That difference frequently explains why organisations continue delivering work while finding it increasingly difficult to produce better results.
The question worth asking
Rather than asking whether people are working hard enough, ask a different question.
Which activities only exist because an earlier problem was never fully resolved?
The answer often reveals where operational capacity is quietly disappearing and where delivery confidence is beginning to weaken long before performance indicators reflect it.
Temporary fixes are rarely the problem.
Allowing them to become the operating model usually is.
Organisations seldom become inefficient because they create workarounds. They become inefficient because nobody notices when those workarounds stop being temporary.
If work keeps moving but progress does not build, it is often worth examining how much effort is being invested in sustaining existing activity rather than improving organisational performance. The Delivery Scorecard helps identify where hidden operational friction is limiting delivery before it becomes visible in outcomes.
Related Observations
Organisations that quietly normalise temporary workarounds often display the same underlying patterns elsewhere.
If this pattern feels familiar, you may also recognise these related operational behaviours:
- Work Keeps Moving But Progress Does Not Build — Activity continues, yet meaningful organisational progress becomes increasingly difficult to achieve.
- Work’s Visible. Progress Isn’t — Visible effort can disguise the growing gap between activity and outcomes.
- When Delivery Keeps Moving But Results Do Not — Organisations can sustain momentum for surprisingly long periods while commercial value quietly plateaus.