Chapter 2. Roles for the Scalable Technology Organization

When the general is weak and without authority; when his orders are not clear and distinct; when there are no fixed duties assigned to officers and men, and the ranks are formed in a slovenly haphazard manner, the result is utter disorganization.

—Sun Tzu

One of the easiest and most common ways for companies to fail in their scalability related endeavors is to not have clarity around the matter of who is responsible for what. Clearly defining high-level goals and objectives is a leadership responsibility and defining the roles and responsibilities of executives, organizations, and individual contributors is a management responsibility. A lack of clarity can be disastrous for the company and organization in a number of ways. In this chapter, we will start by taking a look at two very real examples of what might happen without role clarity and responsibility. We then will discuss the executive roles, the organizational responsibilities, individual contributor’s roles, and conclude by introducing a tool that is extremely useful to ensure that initiatives have all the proper roles filled.