Authority: Set Clear Decision Rights

To be completed in the Team Charter

Team members have permission to do what they believe is needed to accomplish their team’s mission, except when that decision is outside their domain. Restrictions are specific to domains owned by other roles or teams. When a team wants to make a decision on something within another role or team’s domain, they must get their consent.

We explicitly create risk thresholds and decision rights so our teams know what they can own, and which decisions will require the consent of external parties. We aim to distribute as much authority to the edges of the organization as much as we can.

Aligning on decision rights before we being the work gives us the ability to sprint quickly on the things we know we own, without spending time mitigating the risk of “seagulling*” or asking for approval when none is needed.

Here’s a helpful way to think about it:

*To Seagull: to fly over a project at an unexpected time, crap all over the work, then fly off.