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May 29Liked by Fran Soto

Thanks Fran for sharing this, I never heard about this role before.

So basically, have someone oversee the development both technically and and how it's connected to other parts of the system. Also raise concerns for other teams if your team has dependencies, but don't do the work instead of them?

If I got this right, we have a POC on our project, or more of them. 😃 It looks like it's split between our Team Lead and his Manager, but we're a much smaller organization than Amazon, so I guess that makes sense—if POC roles can be split.

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Yes, it's not a formal role itself.

Rather, it is about making sure nobody makes the assumption that "someone else must be looking at this".

I got a very good concept from a book by Jocko Willink about Navy seals: "Decentralized command".

Each team and each person is better at something. Then let them lead and rely on them for that thing.

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Thanks for the clarification, Fran!

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When no one leads, the dots aren’t even connected. Everything is just swinging in the dark. It sucks so bad to be in that situation. And it is even worse when actual leaders are prevented from actual leading, forcing what would be high performance teams to feel like total failures. It is important to have good leadership. Poor leadership is a nightmare.

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Nothing else to add, David.

Like you said, there are people who will take the lead if you allow them. And there are people who will happily follow their lead. I see it as some natural group dynamic

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An insightful read, Fran! I think a task should never get blocked or become obsolete without external factors involved.

It is important to encourage ownership within the team and have someone in charge of an epic, but I would try to make sure to prevent the build-up of knowledge silos.

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100% aligned, Bogdan!

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