Keep Responsibility Matrices Small

Keep responsibility assignment matrices small, sparse, and local As an organization matures, ad-hoc roles are often developed into full teams. This specialization is often critical for building internal economies of scale, but the formalization of new constituencies should be kept in check. Each column in your responsibility assignment matrix expands the possible set of required interactions geometrically; each assignment in the matrix is a coordination point requiring waiting. Where a matrix indicates a high-touch relationship between two groups (e.g., a group of engineers working on a feature and the lawyers trying to ensure the legal compliance of that feature), efforts should be made to reduce the cost of that interaction by colocating their members (e.g., embed a lawyer with the engineers).

A dense page of organizational-management prose explains why responsibility assignment matrices should remain small, sparse, and local. The joke is the exaggeratedly serious warning about bureaucracy, coordination overhead, and lawyers working alongside engineers, making it useful as a reaction to corporate process jargon or overcomplicated workplace organization.

• @jemalloc / 959 2022-09-13