💡 Cross-Functional, Self-Organized Teams: Agile's Most Elegant Illusions
After years leading technical teams, mentoring, and watching "best practices" evolve faster than JavaScript frameworks, one thing is clear:
Cross-functional and self-organized teams exist for a noble reason: faster delivery, fewer dependencies, shared ownership.
In theory, it's beautiful.
In practice?
It's a high-cost simulation where everyone is supposed to do everything, while no one has time to do anything well.
You get:
🌀 Infinite alignment rituals to summon clarity
💥 Blurred roles, so everyone can blame everyone else
🧩 Designers meditating while waiting for requirements
🧠 Engineers writing test cases out of guilt, not strategy
📉 Accountability carefully diffused to avoid detection
Cross-functional becomes "multi-contextual cognitive overload".
Self-organization becomes "structureless entropy punctuated by mandatory retros". Everyone is supposed to drive everything, while no one is responsible and no one is guiding.
It’s not that the ideas are bad. It's that they're deployed as sacred buzzwords, unaccompanied by real leadership, constraints, or intent.
No clarity. No focus. Just a shared Google Doc and the illusion of progress.
✨ Great teams don't just self-organize. They are individually deliberately engineered.
✨ Cross-functional doesn't mean do everything. It means know what not to do.
Until then, enjoy your next story slicing workshop, and remember:
Autonomy without structure and guidance is just… a fire with no marshmallows.
And yes, I'm probably going to hell now for arguing against the Buzzword Bible.
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