This is why having technical management (or at least technical-understanding) is key once you grow past a certain size, I think. There was a link here a few mo

This is why having technical management (or at least technical-understanding) is key once you grow past a certain size, I think. There was a link here a few months back about some MS tiger team that upper management convened to solve a cross-department issue (something about a webpage in updates?). Additional department heads kept getting added to the call everytime someone said "It's not my issue, it's X's!" (ah, here's the link -- http://blog.seattlepi.com/microsoft/files/library/2003Jangatesmoviemaker.pdf http://blog.seattlepi.com/microsoft/files/library/2003Jangat...) I think that's what it takes nowadays: "I have the authority to make you and anyone else necessary resolve this" + "I recognize this is a problem" Too often it's one without the other. PS: Side tip. I think one great thing large organizations can do is have a more outside-the-org-chart independent problem solver. Problems get reported, they summarize the issue and get priority/sign-off from only above themselves, then they're empowered to pull who they need to fix it. Otherwise "that's an issue that only affects our users (aka not dev)" seems all too common.