The Senior Leadership Team (SDT) were out of touch. Creating unattainable goals for associates that often relied on middle management or another department in order for them to achieve it. This was especially frustrating as they were often linked to your own bonus.
To many cooks in the kitchen on many things leading to decisions taking far longer then they should take.
Many associates have been at the company a long time, whilst this is good for retention / knowledge these were also the people that were unable to change for the better. They struggled to understand that things could be done differently. Change agents were often ignored.
The product was dated and the UX needed to be refreshed. Often cutting corners with solutions to meet an arbitrary date that only the business was interested in. No appreciation for technical debt and often discarded as not important. Product Owners not understanding Agile and acting as middle management project managers to senior leaders. Slow release process that had more documentation then actual features in the release.
Danaher processes were often slow and heavy. Doing metrics for metrics sake. There were times when it was easily recognised there was issues with processes and we could easily just do it, but instead it was chosen to do formal processes which took months and only helped with minor improvements.
