Andy Weir
Software Delivery Consultant & Fractional Technical Leader

From delivery friction and burnout to sustainable fast flow — under pressure, where it matters

I help engineering leaders scaling from one team to four uncover what's really slowing delivery — then lead the shift to sustainable fast flow, from the inside.

Beyond “Just Try Harder”

Frantic developers battling green bugs in a whack-a-mole code machine.

This talk explores three practical strategies to reduce bugs and improve software delivery, without blaming people or just trying harder. It was presented at LDX3 2025 and Agile on the Beach 2025 .


About This Talk

Beyond Just Try Harder was delivered at LDX3 2025 and Agile on the Beach 2025. It explores how teams can tackle bugs more effectively by fixing the system, not blaming the people.

We’ve all been there: bugs escape, estimates slip, releases break - and someone says, just try harder next time. But pressure and process rarely fix the root cause. This talk outlines a more sustainable approach, built on what research and real-world teams actually show works.

View the slide deck: LDX3 10-minute ligntning talk
View the slide deck: AOTB 45-minute full talk

You’ll discover three proven strategies:

Fast Feedback

Get Feedback in the Time It Takes to Make a Cup of Tea

Our test suite took 30+ minutes. Developers avoided it, bugs slipped through, and delivery slowed down. We cut feedback time to under five minutes by prioritising key tests, optimising pipelines, and parallelising execution, boosting flow, reducing context switching, and reclaiming dev hours.

Smaller, Safer Changes

You Can’t Inspect a Fourth Leg onto a Three-Legged Table

Even with fast feedback, our legacy system made every change feel risky. We used the strangler fig pattern to migrate safely, automate delivery, and reduce batch size. The result? A shift from chaotic fortnightly releases to confident daily deployments.

Controlled Delivery

Find Bugs Before Your Customers Do

Shipping fast isn’t enough - you need to ship safely. For a critical HealthTech platform, we used feature flags, real-time monitoring, and parallel legacy operation to catch bugs before users did. This gave us trust, safety, and true continuous delivery.

The takeaway

Go beyond Just Try Harder

You don’t need heroic effort. You need a system that supports fast feedback, safe changes, and controlled delivery.


Explore the research, techniques, and practices behind the talk.

Fast Feedback

Reduce overhead, tighten loops, and catch issues early

Smaller, Safer Changes

Shrink batch size, reduce complexity, lower risk

Controlled Delivery

Control exposure, learn safely, and observe failures early


Illustration Prompt

All illustrations in this talk were generated using ChatGPT + DALL·E, based on a custom system prompt and detailed slide-by-slide prompts.

The illustrations use cartoon-style green bugs as metaphors for complexity, fragility, and poor system design - with a consistent visual style to reinforce the talk’s themes in a playful but professional way.

View the full prompt and slide descriptions


Talk Inspiration

These articles explore the ideas and real-world experiences that shaped the talk, from reducing bugs with observability and automation to lessons learned from leading change in a growing HealthTech team.


These strategies reflect the principles I bring to software delivery consulting, helping teams modernise systems, improve flow, and build software that works in the real world.

If this talk resonated with you and you’d like support with similar challenges, I’d love to hear from you.

Book a 20-minute discovery call