Solving the Organizational Seam
Do you ever have those moments when you feel like things are just hard to get done in your company? How many of those happen when the responsibility for getting something done is between different teams? When I talk to people about this they always say you need a RACI. My take is that a RACI doesn’t fix things. It puts someone on the hook which is good, but they still have to operate in the seams between different orgs and galvanize a bunch of teams which is hard.
Those seams can be tough because even if you establish an owner it still requires multiple teams to be heavily involved. At fast moving, small companies this is really challenging because everyone has other priorities. One classic example of a seam comes in when fixing operational problems that everyone cares about, but is not anyone’s full time responsibility. This can be tough because sometimes it requires data team involvement to understand what’s happening, system teams who are required to understand how information flows, ops team who can implement change, and business teams who actually understand what the customer experience needs to be. Other examples might be in product onboarding if you don’t have a dedicated growth org, figuring out payment failures or retention marketing in a PLG driven environment.
In my experience there is no silver bullet for solving projects that fall in the organizational seams, but I do know a RACI isn’t sufficient although it can help. My solutions fall in two camps: find a driver or go hard on a tiger-team with visibility.
Drivers are in short-supply, but if you have read my other articles you know I love team members who have accountability and urgency. If you can find drivers with these characteristics they will find a way to get projects completed in the seams. This is usually my preferred method, find someone who gets things done and unleash them on the project. This can require a carve out of time, but I usually find that these drivers rise to the occasion and love the challenge. This works because these drivers will find a way to get the right people together. They’ll figure out how to sequence the problems and knock down objections in a methodical manner until the project is solved. Bonus points if you can find a driver who is great at process mapping and can lay things out in a structured manner, which is crucial to figuring out how to sequence issues that rely on multiple teams.
My second method for addressing is less preferred, but does work if your drivers are in short supply - which is to create a tiger team with visibility. This can be painful, but I’ll assemble a team of all the people involved in the problem - those adjacent to the seam. Then I get them meeting weekly or more frequently if the problem is urgent. This can work as it gets all the teams together even without a driver, but works better when as a leader you request visibility into their progress. I try to do this without getting bogged down in the weeds, but am happy to dive into details to help the team if they get stuck. This process allows them to figure out how to solve the problems lying in the seams and a regular cadence of meeting plus reporting plays the role of indirect driver. I have found this structure to be highly effective at small companies that are moving fast, but in short supply of drivers and in larger companies with larger matrices.
What other examples of organizational seams have you seen and how do you help address them without a driver or tiger team?