Who owns the initiative?

Can a cross-functional team be truly effective in its mission if its members report to different managers representing different functions? Many large organizations, old and new, seem to think so. At least, that’s how they operate. They set out to deliver big programs or initiatives with cross-functional, agile teams.

These teams might consist of:

• Dedicated (single threaded) product owners/analysts, engineering managers, developers, and QAs
• Part-time architects, scrum masters, agile coaches?
• Associated release engineers and SREs.

But are they really teams?

Teams or Coalitions?

Their product owners and UX designers report to product directors who report to an SVP of Product who probably reports to a CDO. Developers report to engineering managers who report to a director of engineering who reports to an SVP of engineering. QAs report to QA managers who report to a director of QA who then hopefully reports to the same SVP of engineering. The SVP of engineering reports to the CTO. Architects report to a director of architecture who also reports to the CTO. Release engineers report to release managers who report? to a director of DevOps who reports to the CTO. SREs report to operations managers who report to the director of operations who probably reports to the CIO or CTO. Program managers report to a director of PMO. Scrum Masters and agile coaches end up reporting to the director of an agile CoE who might report to the CTO. Project accountants might report to a director of portfolio management who reports to the CIO or CTO. Some places have a CPTO - a combined CDO, CPO, and CTO, but that doesn’t change the situation at the lower levels.

Just stringing together a selection of foot-soldiers from the above organization does not make for a real team. It doesn’t matter that they jointly participate in standups, planning meetings, demos, and retrospectives. If they can’t make significant decisions without checking with multiple bosses, they are a coalition, not a team. And as we see with national governments, coalitions can only be so effective.

Coalition Conundrums

Human motivations complicate the picture. Everyone mentioned above aims to move up the career ladder by shining in their respective functions while working on initiatives that require the harmony of all functions. Many have their own mental models of how things ought to work. Some engineering leaders think that the whole setup ought to be driven by tech, some product leaders think it ought to be product led, and some designers and fans of Steve Jobs think it ought to be design led. Although they might all nod if you counter that it ought to be customer experience led, that mantra doesn’t get everyday traction because it doesn’t help them drive their function’s agenda vis-a-vis other functions.

Who’s responsible for realizing an initiative’s goals in this situation? The closest equivalent to an end-to-end owner is the program manager or program director, if there is one. However, they rarely have the seniority (authority) and competence to truly own the initiative. Mostly, they are limited to reporting progress, readjusting the program plan, and pleading with their colleagues from other functions to support the program with resources and management.

In theory, you could promote greater collaboration by designing variable pay around the achievement of non-local objectives. In practice, you realize that the situation is complex and you don’t want to lose good talent without clear and substantial evidence of non-collaboration.

Captaining the Coalition

Given this set up, how can teams be truly effective? One solution is to upgrade the role of program manager or director to initiative owner, as in, the owner of the initiative’s mission. Amazon calls them the “Single Threaded Leader” (STL) and they are much more than a program manager (which is why Amazon also makes use of TPMs - technical program managers).

STLs are business leaders (director level or above) who report to senior business leaders. “Single threaded” means they don’t work on anything else. As a general manager, they are responsible for business metrics and outcomes, not just successful delivery.

Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), a massive multi-faceted program became successful only after the appointment of an STL. Likewise, Echo and Alexa are led by STLs who oversee both the software and hardware aspects of their products. Granted, these are huge products, businesses in their own right even, but Amazon uses STLs for smaller missions as well.

Viewed through an orgdesign lens, the introduction of an STL overlays a centralized decision making hierarchy across a less centralized reporting hierarchy. This can be better understood with the frame of Cleararchy - my formulation for shaping hierarchy in the digital age. You could read more about it here .

In summary, a function-aligned reporting structure within the tech organization creates challenges for ownership of initiatives. Appointing a senior, full-time business leader per large initiative might help improve performance. There are other factors, such as measurement debt , but that’s outside the scope of this post.

There’s also a more fundamental question. Does it have to be a function-aligned reporting structure in the first place? I’ll explore this at some point in the future.

Until next time, take care and prosper.

Sriram

agileorgdesign.com

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