[ToJans]

When I was freelancing, I was specialized in fixing businesses/projects that got stuck due to tech debt and non-communicating teams, using a bottom-up approach.

The hardest part is changing the mentality of the team, but within a month or 3 you usually ignite the spark that gets everything back on track. Getting to the first tiny win that changes the status quo requires a lot of hard work, but once that's rolling, it's only a matter of making yourself redundant.

One caveat: the bottom-up approach works best when people introduce you as the helping-hand dev. Some people had a hard time understanding the exorbitant paycheck, when all you do is sit with the developers, not even being a PM? (TBH I've been an ad-interim PM in most of these projects for a few weeks, and it usually helps - lead by example etc).

TL;DR: businesses/teams do get stuck, and a consultant who knows what he's doing and doesn't care for titles can turn around things.

EDIT: The one thing that's lacking in this article, is the social aspect. If you are only fixing code, you are just fixing the symptoms, not the causes.