This is a post in a series about the 80% Rule for Designing Teams. As a recap, the rule is that “each team should be equipped with the resources and authority to deliver 80% of their mission without outside dependency”.

---

At its core, the 80% rule is about ensuring that authority and responsibility sit together. Teams fail when they are made responsible for something – and aren’t given the authority over the tools and people needed to meet that responsibility. It is incredibly frustrating.

The implication of the 80% rule is sometimes counter-intuitive. It may feel like organizing in ways that feel inefficient. For example, many companies assume that centralization is efficient. “Why does every prod dev team have their own designer? Isn’t it redundant? Let’s consolidate all of the designers into a single department and share them across different teams!”

But the trade-off of that centralization is loss of authority over design. And if design is an essential part of those product teams succeeding, then well they’re now just screwed.

So save you and your teams pain. Make customers happy. Give your teams direct control over their fate – and watch them flourish.

---

GS Dun builds new ventures and products, including international expansion ventures. Our name is short for “get sh** done”, so while we can talk the talk, we prefer to keep our meetings short and just get on with it.