Shirky Principle

If

An organisation built to solve a problem draws its budget, headcount and status from that problem persisting. Nobody has to be cynical for this to work: the incentives simply never point at making the team unnecessary, so over time the solution quietly becomes an argument for the problem.

Then

“For any team or tool created to fix something, write down what "fixed" looks like and when you will check. A platform team that cannot describe its own obsolescence is optimising for its own survival.”

Unless

Some Problems Are Permanent — treating every long-lived team as self-serving destroys the ones doing necessary maintenance, which is invisible precisely when it is working