TLDR: We all want our product teams to be Effective, Efficient, and Engaged. But how do we keep our agile transformations from stalling out in the first place? Today, we take a proactive look at how to outsmart Larman’s Laws of Organizational Behavior, the “systemic gravity” waiting to pull you backward, so you can help the system you work in accelerate your teams.
“Attempting to change an organization’s culture is a folly, it always fails. Peoples’ behavior (the culture) is a product of the system; when you change the system peoples’ behavior changes.” — John Seddon
It’s easy for a leader to get caught in the daily swirl of doing. If we just roll out the training, rename the roles to sound more agile, set up the Jira boards, and wait for the magic to happen, we are setting ourselves up for a stall. We want that ideal state of health and productivity: teams that are Effective (laser-focused on outcomes), Efficient (organized for smooth throughput without dependencies), and Engaged (empowered and inspired to grow). Otherwise known as The Three Es!
But if we don’t intentionally design for them, the initial energy fizzles out. The organization snaps right back to its old habits like a rubber band.
To keep your transformation from hitting a brick wall, you have to realize that people aren’t the problem. The system is. Your goals must proactively outmaneuver Larman’s Laws of Organizational Behavior. Craig Larman observed that large organizations are implicitly optimized to protect the status quo, especially traditional manager and specialist power structures.
Larman’s Laws of Organizational Behavior
- Organizations are implicitly optimized to avoid changing the status quo.
- Any change initiative will be reduced to redefining or overloading the change to mean basically the same as status quo.
- Any change initiative will be derided as “purist,” “theoretical,” “revolutionary,” “religion,” and “needing pragmatic customization for local concerns.”
- If the change requires some managers and single-specialists to be displaced, they become “trainers and champions” for the change, frequently reinforcing (2) and (3), and creating the false impression “the change has been done,” deluding senior management and future change attempts (after which, they become consultants).
- In large established orgs, culture follows structure.
If you are a Manager, Crew Leader, Chapter Leader, or Product Owner, you can use the Three Es as a proactive diagnostic tool to spot the warning signs before Larman’s Laws sabotage your progress. Let’s look at how to stay ahead of the curve, target the root causes, and ask ourselves some tough questions.
1. To Keep EFFECTIVENESS From Stalling
Our goal: Laser-focused on achieving customer and business outcomes. Incrementally innovating.
What to watch out for: Watch your metrics early. If you see your teams are highly active, shipping deliverables, and completing everything on time, but your business results remain completely flat, pull the emergency brake.
The Larman’s Law Risk: You are actively slipping into Larman’s 2nd and 3rd Laws. The organization is likely trying to rebrand its old, top-down project roadmaps as an “Agile Backlog” (2nd Law). If you don’t establish outcome-based metrics immediately, any future attempt to pivot based on data will be dismissed as “too theoretical” or “not pragmatic for our local needs” (3rd Law).
Proactive Focus on Root Causes:
Systems & Processes: Look at your funding model from day one. Annual and quarterly, project-based budgeting cycles (CapEx/OpEx) force teams to deliver a fixed scope decided months ago. To keep effectiveness high, fight early to tie money to solving a problem rather than executing a rigid, outdated plan.
Culture: Actively challenge the legacy environment that equates “not knowing the exact solution upfront” with incompetence. Create psychological safety early so taking an experimental risk is safer than delivering a useless product on time.
Turn it into a question: Are we setting up our teams to prioritize activity or outcomes? Shift the focus early. Force the system to define success by customer metrics, not just delivery deadlines.
2. To Keep EFFICIENCY From Hitting a Wall
Our goal: Organized for cross-functional throughput. Relentlessly reducing outside-of-team dependencies.
What to watch out for: Monitor your cycle times from the very first sprint. If a simple change takes weeks or months to get to production, or if people are split among multiple teams and constantly bouncing between different backlogs, your efficiency is already fracturing.
The Larman’s Law Risk: You are heading straight for a collision with Larman’s 1st and 5th Laws. True efficiency requires a cross-functional team that has everything it needs to deliver. If you don’t structurally dismantle silos early, Larman’s 1st Law warns that the system will implicitly protect traditional specialist and manager roles, leaving you with a culture of finger-pointing because the underlying structure never actually changed (5th Law).
Proactive Focus on Root Causes:
Systems: Audit HR and operational metrics immediately. If department heads are still evaluated on keeping their people 100% “utilized” (busy), they will hoard talent. Eliminate individual utilization metrics to allow true team throughput.
Processes: Challenge centralized governance gates, manual Change Advisory Boards (CABs), and restrictive architecture committees before they choke the team. Build the underlying infrastructure to support decentralized deployments early.
Turn it into a question: Are we designing our structures to optimize for busy individuals, or the flow of value to our customers? Dismantle the hand-offs from the start. Use your structural authority to pull dependencies directly into product teams instead of trying to “process out” dependencies later.
3. To Keep ENGAGEMENT From Decaying into Cynicism
Our goal: Members feel empowered, challenged, and able to grow. All share common objectives.
What to watch out for: Watch the room during your early dailies and retrospectives. If psychological safety feels low, or if you notice a current of apathy and malicious compliance, engagement is beginning to rot.
The Larman’s Law Risk: You are walking right into Larman’s 4th Law. When a transformation begins, traditional command-and-control leaders are often simply re-titled to fit the new framework. If they don’t receive deep behavioral coaching, they will wear the new agile mask while continuing to micromanage tasks and weaponize velocity. Teams see through fake change instantly and check out.
Proactive Focus on Root Causes:
Systems: Realign performance appraisal and bonus structures before you launch. If you evaluate people purely on individual contribution or stack-ranking, you are actively pitting team members against each other while asking them to “collaborate.”
Environment: Acknowledge the ghost of past corporate reorgs that resulted in layoffs or administrative bloat. Address this history openly so teams don’t default to a defensive posture of compliance just to stay under the radar.
Turn it into a question: Are we leading with directives that kill curiosity, or are we leading with questions that build accountability? Audit your change leadership from day one. True engagement cannot grow under a command-and-control mindset wearing an agile badge.
Need Some Ideas to Try?
Continuous improvement means continuous learning. To keep your momentum on track and push back against the gravity of Larman’s Laws, look at how you can show up differently today based on your unique role:
For Product Owners: Stop being a feature typist before it becomes a habit. If your backlog is just a telephone game of requirements passed down from executives, you are enabling Larman’s 2nd Law. Establish your boundaries early: demand to know the why behind every epic, and tie your goals back to real user problems.
For Crew Leaders & Managers: Remember that culture follows structure. You cannot coach a team into being Efficient if they are chained to external dependencies. Stop trying to “fix” the people later; work right now to reshape the reporting lines, eliminate hand-offs, and clear the path.
For Chapter Leaders: Balance results with growth from day one. Shift your appraisal and incentive systems away from individual heroics and toward collective team achievements. Encourage your specialists to upskill others early, breaking down knowledge silos and rewarding vulnerability.
Every single day we make an impact on those around us, from the questions we ask to the structures we support. What we truly value comes shining through in the way we show up.
Are you leading to reshape the system and empower your teams to grow? Or are you just changing the labels?
What kind of impact are you having today? Let’s turn our statements into questions, look in the mirror, and keep moving forward together.
We all win together!
Coach Dan