The Hidden Cost of Constant Restructuring in Agile Organizations | Renee Troughton

Summary

Podcast Summary

Episode Overview

Podcast: Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast
Host: Vasco Duarte (Agile Coach, Certified Scrum Master, Certified Product Owner)
Guest: Renee Troughton (Enterprise Agile Coach)
Title: The Hidden Cost of Constant Restructuring in Agile Organizations
Date: October 14, 2025

This episode explores the often-overlooked, deeply damaging consequences of repeated organizational restructuring (“reorgs”) within Agile environments. Renee Troughton draws from her experience as an enterprise Agile coach to illuminate the patterns, motivations, and harmful impacts of constant reorganization, shifting the focus from blaming teams to challenging leadership-driven anti-patterns that disrupt trust, safety, productivity, and retention.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Foundations of Self-Improvement for Scrum Masters

• Books That Inspire Introspection (01:23–03:56)
  • Renee Troughton highlights the importance of introspection for Scrum Masters and teams, sharing two influential books:
    • Loving What Is by Byron Katie: Teaches practical thought reframing and “The Work” — a worksheet for personal introspection.
    • Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg: Offers tools to understand emotions, needs, and to frame requests non-confrontationally.
  • Quote [03:22]:

    “To know thyself is one of the greatest strengths that any human being can ever have...What I love about these two books...is inner peace. Who wouldn’t want that?” — Renee Troughton

2. When Teams Aren’t the Root Cause: The Leadership Anti-Patterns (04:48–05:59)

• Shifting the Blame: Renee notes that, while teams struggle, dysfunction often originates at the organizational and leadership level, not with the teams themselves.
• Instead of a typical team ‘failure story’, Renee dives “down a slightly different rabbit hole” to expose leader-driven harmful patterns.

3. The Cost of Constant Organizational Restructuring (05:59–09:17)

• Recurring Reorgs:
  • Many organizations implement major restructurings every six months.
    • Quote [06:07]:

      “I used to work in a large company...they have big reorgs every six months.” — Vasco Duarte

  • Motivation: Leaders use restructuring to avoid direct performance management, essentially moving people out without formal evaluation.
  • Consequences:
    • Disruption for months due to uncertainty and fear.
    • Destroys trust and psychological safety—“the most fundamental foundations of a team to perform.”
    • Productivity tanks as teams are reset, forced to “storm and form” anew.
    • Personalizes the harm: “moving people in and out as if they’re cattle.”
• Other Common Leadership Anti-Patterns:
  • C-Suite Shuffle:
    • A new CEO brings their own team, wipes out the previous strategy, and triggers a cascade of further reorgs every three years.
  • Offshoring/Insourcing Loops:
    • Cyclical outsourcing/insourcing every five to eight years, “just creating chaos in organizations.”

4. Tangible Effects on People and Projects (09:17–12:44)

• Firsthand Experience:
  • Vasco recounts living through six reorganizations in three years at a large company.
    • Quote [09:30]:

      “When you need to reapply for your own job… many of the great people ended up leaving because they found better salaries and better jobs elsewhere. And that was completely triggered by the beginning of the reorganization process.”

• Loss of Top Talent and Knowledge:
  • Reorgs prompt top performers to leave, taking critical product and organizational knowledge with them.
• Prolonged Uncertainty:
  • Uncertainty stretches for months, not days; multiple layers of staff—including managers—must reapply for jobs.
• Long-Term Erosion of Trust:
  • Even those who retain their jobs lose faith in the organization’s care for employees.
  • Quote [11:12]:

    “People might get their own job back, but they're now very nervous that the organization doesn't care about them anymore. And it doesn't.” — Renee Troughton
    “And that's the truth.” — Vasco Duarte

5. Implications for Software and Agile Practice (12:44–13:13)

• Loss of Continuity in Large Products:
  • Success in large, long-lived software products depends on teams who retain knowledge over time.
  • Continual reorganizations shatter continuity, forcing teams back into early-stage forming and storming.
  • Renee and Vasco question how such churn can ever produce positive outcomes from a software or Agile performance perspective.

6. Leadership Power (and Powerlessness) in the Face of Dysfunction (13:03–13:13)

• Not All Leaders Are at Fault
  • Renee notes leaders themselves may have little influence over these high-level decisions; they too suffer the consequences and frustrations.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• [03:22] Renee Troughton:

  “To know thyself is one of the greatest strengths that any human being can ever have...What I love about these two books...is inner peace. Who wouldn’t want that?”

• [06:07] Vasco Duarte:

  “I used to work in a large company that shall remain nameless where they have big reorgs every six months.”

• [08:02] Renee Troughton:

  “If you’re changing your strategy that dramatically every six months that you need to do a reorganization, there’s something really wrong with your strategy.”

• [09:30] Vasco Duarte (On forced reapplications leading to attrition):

  “When you need to reapply for your own job… many of the great people ended up leaving because they found better salaries and better jobs elsewhere. And that was completely triggered by the beginning of the reorganization process.”

• [11:12] Renee Troughton:

  “People might get their own job back, but they're now very nervous that the organization doesn't care about them anymore. And it doesn't.”

  Vasco Duarte:

  “And that's the truth.”

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Inspirational Books for Scrum Masters: 01:23–03:56
• Root Causes Beyond the Team: 04:48–05:59
• How Constant Reorgs Hurt Organizations: 05:59–09:17
• Personal Impact & Talent Drain: 09:17–12:44
• Implications for Product Success: 12:44–13:13
• Leadership’s Role (or Lack Thereof): 13:03–13:13

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Conclusion

This candid conversation dispels the myth that team dysfunction comes solely from within; instead, systemic and especially leadership-driven cycles—like frequent restructuring—are exposed as root causes. Renee Troughton’s call to introspection and Vasco Duarte’s lived experience combine to paint a striking picture: constant reorgs create organizational trauma, loss of trust, talent drain, and ultimately destroy the long-term effectiveness of Agile teams. The episode is a vital listen for leaders and agile practitioners who want to understand the true, hidden costs of organizational upheaval.

Transcript

[A]

Hey there Agile adventurer, just a quick question. What if for the price of a fancy coffee or half a pizza, you could unlock over 700 hours of the best agile content on the planet? That's audio, video, E courses, books, presentations, all that you can think of. But you can also join live calls with world class practitioners and hang out in a flame war free and AI slop clean slack with the sharpest minds in the game. Oh, and yes, you get direct access to me, Vasko, your Scrum Master Toolbox podcast. No, this is not a drill. It's this Scrum Master Toolbox membership. And it's your unfair advantage in the Agile world. So if you want to know more, go check out scrummastertoolbox.org membership. That's scrummastertoolbox.org Membership. And check out all the goodies we have for you. Do it now. But if you're not doing it now, let's listen to the podcast.

[B]

Hello everybody. Welcome to our Team Tuesday this week. Joining us is Rene Trotten. Hey Rene, welcome back.

[C]

Thanks Besko. It's great to be back.

[B]

So Tuesday is Team Tuesday here, of course. But before we dive into the team story, share with us. Rene, what is the book that most inspired you in your career as a Scrum Master?

[C]

This is one of my most favorite questions by the way, and I struggle to limit it to one book, so maybe I'll sort of limit it to a domain space. So one of the things I'm very passionate about is introspection techniques as a Scrum Master and pretty much for anyone in the team. But I think to know thyself is one of the greatest strengths that any human being can ever have. And there's very few pieces of content out there that give really practical tips and tricks around how to do introspection as a technique. So the first book that I came across was by Byron Katie and she had a book called Loving what Is. And it teaches you around how to reframe your thoughts in the day to day life, to assess them in a different light than you would normally perceive them to be, to sort of see it as the problems that are out there are not problems out there, but problems that are in here. And how can you best identify that it's a problem in here and how can you reframe it so that it's no longer a problem? Anyway, so she has a set of practices called the Work and there's a little worksheet that you can do as well that you do the work on that helps you to do that introspection and to do that turning around at a very similar point in time. I also read Marshall Rosenberg's Non Violent Communication and it's a similar level of introspection, practical techniques where you can utilize language to get to the heart of what really is my emotion that I'm feeling, what's the undercurrent need that I'm having and then what's the request that I have associated with that. And if you do a good amount of work in this, again, you quickly learn that it's not a problem out there, that it's a natural framing problem internally associated with it. And what I love about these two books and the journey that it gave me and the journey that I've given many other people through sharing these techniques is inner peace. Who wouldn't want that? Absolutely.

[B]

Inner peace loving what is. And nonviolent communication. The link is in the show notes for everybody to check those out and I'll also include a link to several NVC episodes that we also have on the podcast for people to listen and hear other people's experiences with that particular book and its teachings. Rene now let's turn our attention to the teams that we work with and how sometimes they can become their own worst enemies. So tell us the story of a team, give us a little bit about the context, size, what kind of company, what kind of project, and then walk us through the steps of those little behaviors or patterns that started emerging first innocently enough perhaps, but then spiraled out of control and became a self destructive pattern for the team.

[C]

Yeah, I mean I've definitely had a number of teams that have had a few struggles, but a lot of the teams that I've worked with have been for the most part very successful. And the reason why I paused there is that I want to highlight that sometimes it's not the team that's the problem here. And you know, I've been an enterprise agile coach for over a decade now and if I can Vesco, can I go down a slightly different rabbit hole, which is where leaders fail teams. So there's a few things that aren't almost like dirty little secrets inside of organizations. And I do this exercise with people to say have you seen this in your organizations, these anti patterns? And they're actual cyclical anti patterns that exist in a lot of organizations that are leader led. And you can, you can help bounce off me here and see if you've actually experienced this in some of your organizations as well. So number one, there are constant restructures have you seen that?

[B]

I used to work in a large company that shall rename Nameless where they have big reorgs every six months.

[C]

Yeah, yeah. And I've seen a lot of that and I think that's actually the pattern, the anti pattern. What I find that a lot of leaders, why they do it is they're trying to performance manage out people and they don't want to go through the performance management process. And so the leaders aren't stepping up themselves, they're not addressing the issues and they're consequently doing what I would consider an extremely harmful process of making people go through a redundancy unnecessarily in order to deal with this particular issue. I think in addition to that, if you're changing your strategy that dramatically every six months that you need to do a reward organization, it said there's something really wrong with your strategy. And then the last point that I tried to make with people as they recognize that this is a pattern for them is look at the productivity impacts that it has on your organization. So whenever you have this risk structure, you have a month of people just dealing with utter uncertainty in absolutely fear and panic. It drives a huge victim mindset as a consequence of it, people never feeling safe, there's no trust. And to me trust and safety are the most fundamental foundations of a team to perform. And so you are just breaking the core of organization of teams when you're doing this. And then on top of that, because you're just moving people in and out as if they're cattle, you're resulting in really low productivity for another few months. And whilst they still storm and form until they norm. So that's one example of what I consider eight key dysfunctions that sit in an organization. I can give you another couple just off the top of my head. So things like the C Suite shuffle. So you would have seen this where you've got a new CEO come in and they get rid of the leadership team and they bring in their new team and then that totally wipes out the strategy as a consequence. And then there's a cascading issue where they're bringing their own team in again and that creates that loop of we're going to restructure again. So there's an anti pattern of every three years. So rather than every six months C Suite change creating absolute disruption in an organization, there's the offshoring, onshoring, insourcing, outsourcing loops that also happen again a longer duration, somewhere between five to eight years, but just creating chaos in Organizations. And these are things that in an agile environment, because these decisions are so high up, we don't feel like we're empowered to challenge some of this stuff. But in reality, it is creating the biggest drain in productivity in organizations time and time again.

[B]

One of the things that I remember when I went through those many. I was there at that organization for three years and we went through six reorganizations. And one of the things that I remember is this distinct feeling that this insecurity that you talked about, which I think is very real. And people really feel it, especially when. And this happened a lot when you need to reapply for your own job. Because in certain countries, and that was certainly the case in Finland, where I am, when you do a reorg, you basically need to restaff a new organization. And that's the only legal way to do it. Right. There's a long period of negotiation with the unions, then you set out the new organization. And then in the new organization there are new roles which might be exactly the same as they were before, but they're considered new roles because they're in the new organization. And then you have to reapply for your own work. And when people go through that process, they eventually decide. And this happens, especially with the best people. Well, if I'm going to reapply for my own job, I might as well apply for a bunch of other jobs. And many of the great people in that organization ended up leaving because they found better salaries and better jobs elsewhere. And that was completely triggered by the beginning of that reorganization process. Right. And another thing you also talked about that I want to emphasize is this period of uncertainty be several months. It's not just a week or two weeks. It can be several months until everything settles down. Because your boss is also applying for their job. And you might get a new boss. You don't know.

[C]

Yeah, 100%. And then in addition to that, people might get their own job back, but they're now very nervous that the organization doesn't care about them anymore. And it doesn't.

[B]

And that's the truth.

[C]

Yes. And maybe that's the deepest of the secrets is this pretense that we do care, when in reality there is no care.

[B]

Yeah. And I think that the point that you made is really, really important that especially for large software products and services. Right. Like where you need a lot of people working on it for a long time. And this is of course even more important for successful software products and services, because the unsuccessful will eventually disappear, but the successful ones will need to be kept forever, right? And now if you think about a company's own financial success depending on an existing product that is going out and serving customers and then you have to refactor the team because you just went through a reorg and then a lot of people leave. Also a lot of knowledge leaves. So you end up with a team that is just storming, right, like they're just starting again and a lot of knowledge that is lost. And I really fail to see how this can be from a software perspective, how this can be perceived as a positive change. Now I'm not saying that it is not necessary because I'm not the owner of those companies. It's not up to me to say what the company should or should not do.

[C]

But.

[B]

But from being there I can definitely share that, which you already mentioned, that lack of trust and safety destroys teams for sure.

[C]

Yeah, 100%.

[B]

Yeah. A great call to attention and perhaps also a little bit of reflection for us. All the leaders out there that are listening to this, keep this in mind because that's what you're going through, what your teams are going through when there's a big reorg.

[C]

And to be fair to some leaders, they also don't have a say in it. These decisions are made quite high up and they're also impacted by it. They're also frustrated by it.

[B]

Thank you for sharing that with us, Renee.

[C]

No worries.

[A]

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[B]

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