How to make your team proactive instead of reactive

Some engineering teams spend most of their time putting out fires, fixing urgent issues, and scrambling to meet deadlines. Others anticipate problems, improve processes, and prevent future headaches before they happen. The difference between these two is whether the team is reactive or proactive.

A reactive team always feels like it is one step behind. They fix things when they break but rarely take the time to understand why issues keep coming up. They push features out as fast as possible but do not stop to ask whether the way they work could be better. A proactive team, on the other hand, thinks ahead, takes ownership of problems, and looks for ways to improve efficiency instead of just keeping up.

The shift from reactive to proactive is not automatic. It requires intentional changes in mindset, leadership, and team habits. Why being reactive is a problem

When a team operates in reactive mode, everything feels urgent. Engineers are always responding to the latest bug, priority shift, or unexpected request. In the short term, this might seem productive. After all, things are getting done. But over time, it leads to burnout, inefficiencies, and frustration. I have seen teams struggle because they are constantly dealing with technical debt, recurring outages, and slow workflows, but they never stop to ask, “How do we prevent these issues from happening again?”

When there is no time to improve, the same problems keep coming back. Work feels chaotic, and engineers never feel in control. What makes a team proactive?

A proactive team does not just focus on the now. They take time to think about the future. Instead of just responding to problems as they happen, they ask, “What can we do to prevent this from happening again?”

Proactive teams identify risks early and resolve them before they escalate into significant issues. They continuously enhance workflows rather than tolerating inefficiencies. They automate repetitive tasks to eliminate time spent on manual labor. Additionally, they improve internal documentation and onboarding processes to minimize friction for new engineers. Furthermore, they challenge conventional practices and question established habits. How I encourage my team to be more proactive

Over the years, I have worked on moving teams from a reactive to a proactive mindset. Two experiences stand out because they both had a direct impact on the team’s efficiency and morale.

An example : fixing slow CI/CD instead of just complaining about it

In one of my teams, engineers were frustrated because the CI/CD pipeline was slow as hell. Every deployment took around 30 minutes, making it painful to push changes and release new features. It was slowing down development, but we just accepted it as normal.

At first, everyone worked around the issue. Engineers triggered builds less often and batched changes together. But this led to riskier deployments and last-minute debugging because large releases meant more things could go wrong. The problem was never urgent enough to fix because it had always been that way.

Finally, we decided to be proactive. Instead of just living with slow pipelines, one engineer investigated the bottlenecks. They found unnecessary test runs and inefficient build steps. After optimizing them, we cut deployment time from 30 minutes to 10 minutes. Suddenly, releases were faster, engineers felt more productive, and we stopped wasting time on a problem that could have been fixed months earlier.

This was a huge lesson. Instead of working around broken systems, we needed to fix them at the source.

Another example: Improving onboarding documentation instead of letting every new hire struggle

Another area where we shifted from reactive to proactive thinking was onboarding new engineers. At one point, developers kept complaining that onboarding was confusing and documentation was outdated, messy, and missing key details. Every time someone new joined, they had to ask the same questions, and every engineer onboarding experience felt different.

At first, we handled it reactively. We answered questions as they came up and helped new hires one-on-one. But that did not solve the problem. It just moved the burden onto the existing team.

To fix this, I created a simple process: every new engineer had to review and improve the onboarding documentation as they went through it. If a link was outdated, they updated it. If something was unclear, they clarified it. After just a few hires, our onboarding guide became clearer, more structured, and easier to follow. New engineers ramped up faster, and the team stopped wasting time answering the same questions over and over.

This change was small, but it made a huge difference. Instead of accepting the pain of bad documentation, we made onboarding better for everyone. What engineering managers can do to support a proactive culture

Moving a team from reactive to proactive does not happen overnight. It takes leadership and intentional effort.

One of the best things a manager can do is create space for proactive work. If every sprint is packed with urgent tasks, engineers will never have time to improve workflows. Teams need dedicated time for automation, documentation, and tech debt reduction. Otherwise, they will always be in survival mode.

Managers also need to set the expectation that proactivity is valued. When engineers take the initiative to fix something, it should be recognized. If someone automates a painful process, that should be celebrated. If an engineer spots a risk and prevents an incident, that is just as important as fixing one.

Lastly, managers must lead by example. If leadership is always reacting to the latest crisis, the team will follow that pattern. But if leadership encourages planning, continuous improvement, and questioning the way things are done, the team will adopt those habits too. Proactivity is a competitive advantage

Teams that operate reactively burn out, make more mistakes, and struggle to innovate. A team that learns to be proactive moves faster, builds better systems, and creates a more sustainable work environment.

The transition from reactive to proactive is not about working harder, it is about working smarter. It is about fixing the root cause instead of just treating symptoms. It is about thinking long-term instead of just focusing on immediate tasks. When a team embraces proactivity, work becomes smoother, more predictable, and far less stressful.

If your team is always scrambling, always fixing, always reacting, maybe it is time to step back and ask: “What would it take to stop fighting fires and start preventing them?”