Navigators

Will Larson on Irrational Exuberance: Navigators

Key quotes:

I find that centralized groups–typically called the Architecture Team or something along those lines–tend to perform poorly in practice. Sometimes they’re inefficient, sometimes they make bad choices, sometimes they just don’t do much at all.

The Navigator pattern is so obvious, and in my experience so much better than the alternatives, that it’s worth asking ourselves why we don’t see it very often. My short answer is that I think the industry continually underestimates what senior engineers can do if we give them the necessary context and remit to do it. It’s considered a radical act to trust your engineers to make truly important decisions, but it doesn’t need to be that way. As long as we’re willing to hold engineers accountable for carrying important roles, then trusting them is no more radical than trusting anyone else in your organization: there’s some risk, but it’s a risk well worth taking.

My take: Interesting alternative posited here.