--- title: "Survival Mode" url: "https://www.5whys.com/topics/survival-mode.md" canonical: "https://www.5whys.com/topics/survival-mode" updated: "2026-10-27" tags: [] author: "Roy Osherove" description: "How a software team leader recognizes survival mode, breaks the chaos addiction and takes the first steps that make time for the team to learn." usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)." license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" --- # Survival Mode [Topic](https://www.5whys.com/#topics-h) A team in survival mode has no time to learn: every day goes to fighting fires, and the shortcuts taken today become tomorrow's fires. In the Elastic Leadership model it is the first of three team modes, and the team leader's job is to lead with a firm hand until the team has slack time again. These articles define survival mode, show its signs and give the first steps that work during chaos. 1. [Definition: Survival Mode](https://www.5whys.com/articles/definition-survival-mode.html) October 20, 2013 A short definition of survival mode, the spiral of fighting fires with no time to learn, and how removing over commitments helps break it. 2. [Signs you might be in survival mode](https://www.5whys.com/articles/signs-you-might-be-in-survival-mode.html) March 27, 2014 A list of early warning signs that a software team is in survival mode, such as constant urgency, missing context, no time to reduce risk and long stress. 3. [Dangers of Survival Mode](https://www.5whys.com/articles/dangers-of-survival-mode.html) November 3, 2014 Lessons from a LEGO exercise on how leaders react in survival mode, and why deadlines, low quality and team behavior are not givens. 4. [The Chaos Addiction](https://www.5whys.com/articles/the-chaos-addiction.html) August 8, 2011 How survival mode becomes a self-reinforcing addiction that cuts quality and learning time, and why a team leader must take a risk to break the cycle. 5. [Elastic Leadership Team Survival Vs. Team Chaos Vs. Cynefin](https://www.5whys.com/articles/elastic-leadership-team-survival-vs-team-chaos-vs-cynefin.html) July 30, 2012 Why the first phase of Elastic Leadership was renamed from chaos to survival to avoid clashing with Cynefin, and how the three team phases are defined. 6. [On time, with quality - why is this mostly failing?](https://www.5whys.com/articles/on-time-with-quality-why-is-this-mostly-failing.html) May 6, 2012 Why teams fail to ship on time with quality while stuck in chaos, and why team leaders must remove commitments to make time to learn and practice. 7. [Step #1 – Claim Your Territory, Own your team](https://www.5whys.com/articles/step-1-claim-your-territory-own-your-team.html) September 5, 2009 Why a dev lead must claim the team's territory: keep implementation decisions inside the team, be its single entry point, and ask why outsiders interfere. 8. [Step #2 – Use a big visible board with post it notes](https://www.5whys.com/articles/step-2-use-a-big-visible-board-with-post-it-notes.html) September 5, 2009 How a team lead can use a big visible whiteboard with sticky notes to track tasks, expose developers juggling several tasks, and show management the load. 9. [Daily Standup Meetings - Introduction and 5 useful tips](https://www.5whys.com/articles/daily-standup-meetings-introduction-and-5-useful-tips.html) September 6, 2009 How to run a daily standup meeting with the three questions, why each question matters, and five hard-learned tips for keeping it under 15 minutes. 10. [Step #4 - Start doing code reviews – Seriously](https://www.5whys.com/articles/step-4-start-doing-code-reviews-seriously.html) September 9, 2009 A team leader's guide to serious code reviews: what to look for, reviewing every check-in yourself at first, then training the team to review its own code. 11. [12 Behavior Anti Patterns You Will Face As a Software Team Leader](https://www.5whys.com/articles/12-behavior-anti-patterns-you-will-face-as-a-software-team-l.html) April 11, 2011 Twelve team member behavior anti-patterns and three outside disruptions a software team leader faces in survival mode, with how to respond to each one. 12. [Elastic Leadership in Devops Survival Mode](https://www.5whys.com/articles/elastic-leadership-in-devops-survival-mode.html) February 24, 2013 A look at a DevOps Guys post in which command and control ended production fires and freed time to learn, read as Elastic Leadership in survival mode. 13. [Do new startup leaders need to grow their teams?](https://www.5whys.com/articles/do-new-startup-leaders-need-to-grow-their-teams.html) May 1, 2012 Why early-stage startups are usually in survival mode with no time to grow people or use TDD, and why learning should start once the direction is proven. Every post in the category [First Steps during chaos](https://www.5whys.com/articles/category/First+Steps+during+chaos) (30) · Other topics: [Learning Mode](https://www.5whys.com/topics/learning-mode), [Team Leader Manifesto](https://www.5whys.com/topics/team-leader-manifesto), [Scrum Master](https://www.5whys.com/topics/scrum-master) · [All articles](https://www.5whys.com/articles) --- ## About the author **Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery. ### Sites - [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership. - [osherove.com](https://osherove.com): Roy's personal site. Author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership; consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery, plus about 20 years of blog posts. - [The Art of Unit Testing](https://www.artofunittesting.com): The Art of Unit Testing, 3rd Edition (Manning): readable, maintainable, trustworthy unit tests, plus TDD workshops in C#, JavaScript, Java and Kotlin. - [5whys.com](https://www.5whys.com): Roy's writing on software team leadership: self-organizing teams, surviving chaos, learning mode and the Elastic Leadership model. - [Pipeline Driven](https://pipelinedriven.org): Continuous delivery and DevOps practices: build patterns, pipeline-friendly testing, DevOps metrics and enterprise DevOps. - [Elastic Leadership](https://www.elasticleadership.com): Elastic Leadership, Roy's framework for software team leaders (survival, learning and self-organizing modes). ### Social - X: https://x.com/royosherove - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/osherove/ ### Contact - Contact form: https://forms.gle/jQSx5KoXvrVA1JCK7 ### License Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/