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Engineering leaders learn how the Trio model can eliminate the blame game between business and IT teams. Discover practical strategies for cross-functional collaboration that actually work.
The Trio Model: Breaking Down Business-IT Walls
Key Topics Covered
The Business-IT Dysfunction Problem
- Why blame games develop between business and IT teams
- The 'technical purgatory' of mid-sized companies (200-1000 employees)
- Common symptoms: endless backlogs, shadow IT solutions, demoralized engineers
Why Traditional Fixes Fail
- Hiring more managers: Adds abstraction without context
- Adding more engineers: Brooks' Law in action
- Better ticketing systems: Makes misalignment visible but doesn't fix it
- More meetings: Creates 'status theater' without decisions
The Trio Model Explained
- Three core roles: Business owner, technical lead, designer/analyst/ops lead
- Co-ownership of outcomes, not just task handoffs
- Clear decision rights to prevent gridlock
- Not a committee: Explicit authority assignment
Implementation Strategy
- Which problems warrant a trio (high ambiguity, cross-functional dependencies)
- Decision rights framework
- Shared metrics and accountability
- Starting with 1-2 pilot areas
Leadership Requirements
- Stop bypassing trio processes with 'urgent' requests
- Protect trio time and focus
- Hold business owners accountable for outcomes
- Accept timeline realities
Key Quotes
- "If every request is urgent, there's no way for IT to prioritize"
- "Shared ownership of the outcome doesn't mean you can point at someone else when your part goes wrong"
- "The trio owns it can quickly become no one owns it"
Action Items
- Identify 1-2 high-friction problem areas
- Form pilot trios with clear problem definitions
- Establish shared success metrics
- Review and iterate after one quarter
Chapters
- 0:00 - The Business-IT Blame Game Problem
- 1:56 - Life in Technical Purgatory
- 5:29 - Why Traditional Fixes Don't Work
- 10:09 - Introducing the Trio Model
- 15:51 - Implementation and Decision Rights
- 23:42 - Measuring Success with Shared Metrics
- 24:50 - Leadership Changes Required
- 29:25 - Getting Started: A Practical Approach
14 episodes