• It is OK not to please the boss, it is not OK not to serve the business. Information hiding is unacceptable
  • Ideally employees do not guess what the manager wants and executes on that decision
  • Employees need to learn filter only relevent topics due to the rich contextual information
  • Values are shown by who gets rewarded or let go.

What should be included in the context

This is where most cross-team discussion should happen.

  • Metrics
    • including definition of success
  • Assumptions
  • Objectives
    • Result oriented. Focus on customer impact.
    • Timeframe/urgency/importance
    • How precise the solution needs to be? No error/can correct errors/experimental
  • Clearly-defined roles
    • including key stakeholders, which is manager’s job to figure out

What should be avoided

  • Top-down decision making
  • Management approval, or managers make technical decisions for the team
  • Committes
  • Cross team discussion on tactics. Each team should be able to execute tactics without management approval