Comparison
EscalationvsSilo
Escalation
two teams had been stuck for three weeks and it took one meeting with someone who owned both.
Taking a decision to whoever holds authority over both sides of a deadlock. It has a bad reputation because it is often confused with complaining, but a decision blocked between two teams with no shared owner is a structural problem that cannot be solved at their level. The professional version is quick, joint and factual: both positions written down, escalated together, framed as a request for a decision rather than a judgement.
Full entry →Silo
the database changes all go through one team, and their queue is nine weeks long.
A group holding knowledge or authority that others need and cannot get. Silos form for good reasons — specialism, security, historical accident — and they turn every cross-boundary change into a scheduling problem. The question worth asking is whether the boundary is protecting something real or merely preserving a queue, because the second kind is usually dissolved by giving the other teams a supported self-service route.
Full entry →