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Too much autonomy is too much of a good thing. You end up with 5 "send a email" microservices, multiple design systems, etc. People won't bother to look outside
by JMTQp8lwXL 5y ago
Too much autonomy is too much of a good thing. You end up with 5 "send a email" microservices, multiple design systems, etc. People won't bother to look outside of there team's scope to see if anyone else in the company has solved a similar problem. Or without a culture of external contributions, people will make their own versions of things that are 90% identical to an existing team's service.
- sidlls 5y agoThis describes the org I’m in right now. The upper management (all former engineers, several ex-FAANG) are not only supportive but have explicitly reaffirmed that duplication of that sort doesn’t matter: every team must be as autonomous as possible even if it leads to a high degree of overlap. And it’s already biting us. There are at least two issues I’m aware of that are a direct result of this policy which are very bad. When they come to light the company’s reputation (and share price) will very likely be harmed.
- haswell 5y agoToo much autonomy can be too much of a good thing, but this is not universal, and when it turns out to be a bad thing, that says more about the group who has been given the autonomy than it does about autonomy itself. A sibling comment talks about trust/skill, and these are factors that are more important than just focusing on autonomy as a stand-alone concept. Open Source projects show both ends of this spectrum, with absolute autonomy yielding both amazing and mediocre results.