Organizational Design Pattern 1 — Technical Ownership
Let’s start with defining what we mean by “technical ownership.”
Ownership is a rule in the organization; it is a policy, a mandate, or a responsibility given to some and not to others.
Examples:
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Ownership of a component or collection of components.
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Ownership of a web service or collection of web services.
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Ownership of a bounded context defined in DDD (domain-driven design).
This seems to be the prevailing organizational design pattern, possibly finding its roots in Taylorism—a management theory that revolutionized industrial manufacturing by introducing a deterministic approach to improving economic efficiency, particularly labor productivity. Taylorism is based on the idea of analyzing and planning workflows to increase efficiency, standardize tasks, and simplify the jobs that workers need to perform.
The core principles of Taylorism involve breaking down tasks into their smallest parts and optimizing each element of the work process. Taylor advocated for the scientific selection and progressive training of workers to ensure they were well-suited and skilled for specific tasks.
Knowledge work inherently differs from the routine, repetitive tasks of industrial work that Taylorism aimed to optimize. It involves problem-solving, creativity, and dealing with complex information that doesn't easily lend itself to the standardization and time-motion studies central to Taylorism.
Today, due to ever-more complex tasks, the required expertise has evolved. Even routine work requires high expertise. Therefore, instead of discussing the difference between repetitive and knowledge work, it is more fitting to establish the difference between routine and adaptive expertise and work (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_expertise), especially as, in recent decades, the need for agility (a synonym for adaptiveness) has increased.
Despite these criticisms, the principles of Taylorism have left a lasting impact on industrial engineering, manufacturing, and management practices. One impact is the narrowly scoped ownership assigned to a person or group (team).
Yet, even in organizations denying Taylorism, we observe narrow ownership given to teams. Why’s that? Well, it is a series of beliefs we’ll address next, followed by some serious consequences to consider when choosing this organizational design pattern.