Ever had the feeling that getting things done is harder than it should be? It’s difficult to find relevant information, get hold of the colleague you need, or obtain a decision from the responsible person. Even when you have a good understanding of what needs to be done and solid momentum, it still feels like running underwater. We can call this friction.
By friction, I mean small internal obstacles in the system—caused by bureaucracy, misunderstandings, and poor communication—that slow down work and cause frustration. Some level of friction is inevitable, and there is even good friction (for example, friction caused by security or risk controls), but friction levels in a company should be actively monitored.
What Causes Friction
High friction can manifest in different ways and often results in elevated levels of employee stress, burnout, and turnover. Some more specific symptoms include:
Frequently mentioning issues but not doing anything about them. This is especially noticeable when a newcomer joins a team and starts bringing up issues from a fresh perspective, while the rest of the team simply acknowledges them as “known problems” (thus normalising deviance).
You don’t know who to talk to. You see an issue in a particular system or process but don’t know who is responsible for fixing it. The person who built it may have moved on, with no clear replacement.
It’s difficult to get someone’s attention. You need something from a colleague, but they are overloaded with other work, and your requests are either ignored or take an unreasonable amount of time to complete.
Difficulty finding information. You frequently notice that the information you have is stale, incomplete, or contradictory. In such cases, it’s hard to determine whether it is correct or actionable.
I’m confident this list is not complete. Friction is an intangible phenomenon and is often difficult to notice, let alone analyse. In your organisation, it may manifest in other ways. Still, we can push forward and examine what typically causes friction. Several factors stand out as the most frequent.
Unclear ownership. I mean this both formally and culturally. In young, fast-growing companies, formal ownership of systems may not exist. People build and maintain them based on their abilities and shifting priorities. In more mature organisations, ownership is often lost when people change projects or leave. Even when ownership is formally assigned, the culture may not reinforce real accountability, resulting in systems and processes that no one actively maintains.
Poor communication. Some would argue this is the root cause of most management and organisational problems. A recurring issue is that people struggle to express expectations clearly and fail to confirm mutual understanding. As a result, delivered outcomes don’t match expectations—and the reverse is just as common.
High load. Often, colleagues genuinely want to help but are simply overburdened. Incoming requests are missed, left sitting in backlogs, or handled in a half-hearted manner.
How to Reduce Friction
The most important step in reducing friction is making a correct diagnosis of your organisation. Once the causes are understood, finding a solution is easier. However, since many issues are rooted in culture and behaviour, meaningful change will take time and sustained effort.
When creating an action plan, think along two dimensions:
- Policies — formal processes, roles, and responsibilities implemented in the company
- Principles — behavioural changes required to alter how the organisation actually works
Let’s apply these dimensions to the three root causes discussed above.
Unclear Ownership
Policies: formal job descriptions, system ownership matrix, system inventory or catalogue, RACI matrix.
Principles: owning outcomes rather than just tasks, finishing work end-to-end, continuous improvement, and following the Boy Scout Rule.
Poor Communication
Policies: written communication over verbal, written follow-ups for verbal agreements, documented meeting notes, clear definitions of done for epics and tasks, ubiquitous language, and precise language in business, product, and technical documentation.
Principles: active listening, constructive feedback, explicitly clarifying expected results, timely escalation, and proactive communication.
High Load
Policies: project planning and estimation, time buffers, limiting work in progress, tracking unfinished work, monitoring cognitive load.
Principles: finishing existing work before starting new tasks, clear priorities from leadership, transforming hero culture, protecting team focus, and encouraging regular feedback from team members.
How Technology Can Help
While addressing the root causes requires behavioural change, technology can reduce friction in practical ways:
Create single sources of truth and eliminate duplication. Ensure business data and documentation live in one place, are discoverable by the right users, and have clear provenance and edit history.
Limit the number of tools. Every additional tool adds cognitive overhead. Regularly review your toolset, identify duplication, and decommission what’s no longer needed.
Automate repetitive processes to reduce workload and prevent errors.
Build self-service capabilities. Allow users to safely access the resources they need without intermediaries. For non-self-service requests, provide clear channels and instructions.
Make friction visible. Create dashboards that expose not only business metrics but also friction indicators such as workload, SLA breaches, unresolved issues, and incidents.
Implementing such systems can help reduce friction, but I don’t believe that technology alone can fix this problem.
Good Friction
Not all friction is bad. Some friction is necessary to ensure safety, resilience, and compliance. Good friction is introduced by guardrails and structural tensions within organisations. Examples include:
Conflicts between roles, such as sales wanting to onboard a new client while compliance or risk rejects it, or IT pushing new technology while finance pushes back on cost.
Guardrails against unsafe behaviour. Limited access, controlled production deployments, and mandatory approvals protect the business from security and operational risks.
Formal change review processes. Requiring structured analysis artifacts—such as ADRs or RFCs—forces deliberate thinking before implementation, rather than impulsive change.
The challenge is maintaining balance. When guardrails become excessive or unexamined, good friction quickly turns toxic.
Fighting Friction is a Constant Challenge
Cities grow, cities evolve, cities have parts that simply die while other parts flourish; each city has to be renewed in order to meet the needs of its populace… Software-intensive systems are like that.
— Grady Booch
Fighting friction is similar to refactoring: it is continuous and never finished. You can neither complete it nor ignore it. As technology leaders, you must be able to spot friction through clear indicators and candid communication and be willing to invest time and resources to address it. Reducing friction is a leadership responsibility and cannot be fully delegated—it requires a holistic view of the organisation. With sustained attention and incremental improvements, friction can be kept under control.