Autonomous teams are an article of faith in modern software development. Give cross-functional full-stack full-lifecycle teams autonomy and they will deliver value and flow – or better value, sooner, safer, happier.

But where are the boundaries of autonomy? Where does governance and policy fit in? Can a team decide their own HR practices, interactions with regulators & funding model? What about architecture, design, or organisational decisions that – by the nature of the product, not a poorly chosen architecture – must span multiple teams, or even multiple teams-of-teams? How are they made? How are autonomy and coherence balanced in a fractal way? Who decides what, when and how? And who decides who decides?

Simon will provide a combination of theory – the Viable Systems Model, the Platform model ("preventing unnecessary creativity"), Socio-Technical design principles – and practical experience, as a preview to his contribution to Jon Smart's forthcoming book Organising for Outcomes.

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