Scale-ups
Every squad knows its own area. The failures live between them.
SEVERAL SQUADS, ONE PRODUCT, NOBODY HOLDING THE WHOLE PICTURE
Squads that each know
their own half.
The product is split across squads, and each one is genuinely expert in its part. The coupling between those parts is not owned by anybody.
Changes look local until they are not. The surprises arrive at integration, in staging, or from a customer.
What coupling costs
when nobody owns it.
Finding out whether a change affects another squad is a conversation, scheduled, with the people who might know.
The dependency that was missed is found at the most expensive possible moment.
"Is this risky?" is answered by whoever has been here longest, not by evidence.
What you ask before
a cross-team change.
Which squads does this change reach?
What depends on this service that we do not own?
Where is engineering complexity creating the most risk right now?
Which changes affect the largest part of the product?
Changing how refunds work after shipment
Someone asks what could break if refunds become available after shipment.
The answer names the behaviors it crosses and which of them belong to other squads, with the evidence.
The affected squads are in the conversation before the branch is cut, not after the integration fails.
The coordination happens once, at the start, on the basis of what the product actually does.
A WORKED EXAMPLE OF HOW THE WORK GOES, NOT A CUSTOMER CASE STUDY. WHEN WE PUBLISH A CUSTOMER RESULT IT WILL BE MEASURED AND NAMED.
What changes when
impact is known first.
Impact is known before the work
The reach of a change is computed in both directions, so scoping is a query rather than a round of meetings.
Cross-squad coupling becomes visible
The part nobody owns is the part everybody can now see.
Prioritization gets evidence
"Fix this first" is backed by what the product says depends on it.
Measured, and the same
whatever your size.
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