From chaos to coherence: turning a fragmented IT team into a reliable Delivery Engine

Impact at a glance (KPIs)

The intervention did not aim to “speed up development” in isolation. The real objective was to make delivery predictable and sustainable in a platform serving external partners.

About the client

The client is an Italian tour operator that invested heavily in building its own B2B software platform to distribute travel packages to a network of partner agencies.

The platform was strategic: it connected product definition, pricing, availability, and partner sales channels. As adoption grew, so did expectations. New partners required new features, existing partners requested adjustments, and internal teams relied on the platform to support commercial growth.

The IT team behind the platform was composed of capable, committed professionals. From the outside, the situation looked promising: continuous development, many initiatives in motion, and strong domain knowledge.

Internally, however, the system was under strain.

The problem: when a platform grows faster than its governance

As usage increased, the platform became harder to evolve safely. Changes introduced for one partner sometimes created regressions for others. Architectural decisions varied depending on urgency rather than long-term impact. New work entered the pipeline continuously, while existing work accumulated unfinished.

Delivery discussions became tense. Technical debates stretched on without resolution. Despite constant effort, the perception - internally and externally - was that the platform was always “one step behind.”

The core issue was not technical skill or motivation.
It was the absence of a clear technical leadership structure able to keep coherence across a growing B2B system.

The solution: restoring coherence without slowing the business

The intervention focused on structure and clarity, not control. No heavy methodologies were introduced, and no team was reorganized by force. Instead, leadership was rebuilt incrementally around four key steps.

Step 1: Defining a shared technical direction

The first step was to stop treating architecture as an emergent side effect.

Together with the team, a set of explicit architectural principles was defined: how to evaluate change requests, which trade-offs were acceptable in a B2B context, and where consistency across partners was mandatory.

This created a shared reference point. Decisions became easier to justify, and discussions shifted from personal preferences to system-level reasoning.

Step 2: Clarifying ownership in a multi-stakeholder platform

In a B2B platform, ambiguity is costly. The next step was therefore to make ownership explicit.

Responsibility for architectural coherence, code quality, and delivery commitments was clearly assigned. This reduced friction between roles and eliminated the need for constant alignment meetings.

As ownership became visible, decisions accelerated, and accountability followed naturally.

Step 3: Reshaping workflows around partner impact

Attention then moved to how work flowed through the team. Instead of optimizing for how many partner requests could be accepted, workflows were redesigned to prioritize completion and stability. Parallel work was limited, expectations around reviews and releases were clarified, and the definition of “done” was tied to real partner usability.

This shift reduced last-minute fixes and significantly lowered partner-facing incidents.

Step 4: Enabling autonomy within clear boundaries

Finally, leadership posture evolved. Rather than micromanaging tasks, technical leadership focused on enabling better decisions. Developers were trusted to act autonomously within defined architectural boundaries and encouraged to surface risks early, before they reached partners.

Autonomy increased, but it was now aligned with platform-wide responsibility.

The result: a platform the business can rely on

Within a few months, the difference was evident: releases became more predictable. Partners experienced fewer disruptions. Internal discussions became shorter, calmer, and more focused on outcomes rather than blame.

The team did not become flawless. It became reliable, aligned, and adaptable: a crucial shift for a platform at the center of a B2B ecosystem.

Why this transformation worked

This result was not achieved through new frameworks or increased pressure.

It worked because leadership focused on structural clarity:

• shared technical direction instead of fragmented decisions

• explicit ownership instead of collective ambiguity

• autonomy supported by clear constraints

In complex B2B platforms, chaos is rarely accidental. It emerges when governance does not evolve at the same pace as adoption.

A common pattern in many industries, not only digital tour operators

This situation is increasingly common among various company that internalize software development. As platforms become central to commercial strategy, informal leadership models stop scaling. When that happens, instability is not a failure of people: it is a signal that technical leadership must mature before complexity does it for you.