Deniz Ari: How Intense Delivery Pressure Destroyed Team Trust, Culture, and Brought Burnout

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Working in the public sector, Deniz faced a challenging situation during a particularly busy winter period when the client wanted to combine multiple major initiatives simultaneously: migration, new features, and security improvements. This led to an oversized team of 25 engineers, which ultimately caused significant problems. The pressure to continuously deliver became overwhelming, breaking team trust and leaving members feeling abandoned. Several team members left, the team culture disintegrated, and cases of burnout emerged. After this difficult experience, Deniz conducted a comprehensive retrospective to process what happened and provide feedback to management about the dangers of excessive pressure in Scrum environments.

Self-reflection Question: How might you recognize the early warning signs of team burnout before it reaches a critical point, and what boundaries would you establish to protect your team?

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About Deniz Ari

Deniz is an innovative, driven professional with expertise in Agile coaching, delivery management, data science, and technology transformation. As a Scrum Master and Agile Coach, Deniz builds high-performing teams, drives strategic execution, and fosters collaboration. Passionate about continuous improvement, they lead cultural shifts, optimize processes, and deliver scalable, high-quality outcomes.

You can link with Deniz Ari on LinkedIn.