In the past, I have frequently discussed collaboration models that suit our need for fast flow. This conversation keeps recurring as we build new shared services and collaborate more. Ownership is a key driver of motivation, and both team autonomy and team collaboration significantly influence that sense of ownership.
Autonomy’s Influence on Ownership
When teams have full control over their work—including decision-making, technical choices, and execution—they take greater responsibility. This autonomy fosters a strong sense of accountability and motivation because team members see a direct connection between their efforts and their impact.
Conversely, when teams are highly dependent on others, ownership becomes diluted. This can lead to disengagement, as individuals feel like they are merely executing tasks rather than driving meaningful outcomes. Good ideas that require excessive collaboration at the cost of autonomy must be left out to preserve ownership.
Collaboration’s Influence on Ownership
Effective collaboration helps teams understand how their work fits into a larger system, reinforcing a sense of purpose and ownership. Shared goals and cross-team initiatives can boost motivation by making people feel part of something bigger. However, ownership should remain the primary consideration in team collaboration.
If collaboration is imposed through dependencies and unclear responsibilities, it weakens ownership. A common pitfall is having too many people assigned to specific jobs without coordinated execution. In such cases, it is better to omit collaboration to protect team autonomy rather than allow it to erode responsibility.
The Slow Decline of Ownership: The Termite Effect
The real disaster in organizations is not a sudden collapse due to a lack of collaboration but a slow, almost imperceptible decline in ownership caused by excessive collaboration. This phenomenon is akin to termites weakening a structure over time rather than a tornado bringing sudden destruction. With every added layer of collaboration, ownership is diluted just a little more—until, eventually, no one wants to keep the ball.
Conway’s Law and Organizational Design
Applying Conway’s Law to this dynamic can reveal how organizational structure shapes ownership, motivation, and team dynamics. Conway’s Law states:
“Organizations that design systems are constrained to produce designs that mirror their communication structures.”
This means that organizational structures influence system designs. The way teams are structured determines whether a system becomes modular (supporting autonomy) or inflexible (requiring extensive collaboration). By intentionally designing org structures that enable communication flows that reinforce ownership rather than dilute it, organizations can balance autonomy and collaboration effectively.
Traditionally, application development teams may have high autonomy but limited collaboration with Ops, DBA, and Support. This can create silos where developers focus solely on code without accountability for deployment, performance, or reliability. Conversely, Ops teams, which prioritize stability and follow structured workflows, often experience high collaboration but low autonomy, leading to weak ownership.
Applying Conway’s Law, organizations that design systems around rigid silos tend to create tightly coupled architectures that reinforce inefficiencies. In contrast, modern IT teams that embrace autonomy while maintaining structured collaboration foster ownership, agility, and innovation.
Striking the Right Balance
So the key question is: What is the optimal amount of collaboration to choose? How can we structure our teams to strike the right balance between autonomy and collaboration, fostering ownership that leads to outstanding outcomes?
By prioritizing ownership over excessive collaboration, ensuring autonomy where it matters, and designing structures that align with Conway’s Law, organizations can create an environment where teams are accountable, motivated, and effective in delivering results.