The Trio Model: Breaking Down Business-IT Walls for Better Engineering Collaboration

Engineering leaders learn how the Trio model can eliminate the blame game between business and IT teams. Discover practical strategies for cross-functional collaboration that actually work.

The Trio Model: Breaking Down Business-IT Walls

Key Topics Covered

The Business-IT Dysfunction Problem

• Why blame games develop between business and IT teams
• The 'technical purgatory' of mid-sized companies (200-1000 employees)
• Common symptoms: endless backlogs, shadow IT solutions, demoralized engineers

Why Traditional Fixes Fail

• Hiring more managers: Adds abstraction without context
• Adding more engineers: Brooks' Law in action
• Better ticketing systems: Makes misalignment visible but doesn't fix it
• More meetings: Creates 'status theater' without decisions

The Trio Model Explained

• Three core roles: Business owner, technical lead, designer/analyst/ops lead
• Co-ownership of outcomes, not just task handoffs
• Clear decision rights to prevent gridlock
• Not a committee: Explicit authority assignment

Implementation Strategy

• Which problems warrant a trio (high ambiguity, cross-functional dependencies)
• Decision rights framework
• Shared metrics and accountability
• Starting with 1-2 pilot areas

Leadership Requirements

• Stop bypassing trio processes with 'urgent' requests
• Protect trio time and focus
• Hold business owners accountable for outcomes
• Accept timeline realities

Key Quotes

• "If every request is urgent, there's no way for IT to prioritize"
• "Shared ownership of the outcome doesn't mean you can point at someone else when your part goes wrong"
• "The trio owns it can quickly become no one owns it"

Action Items

• Identify 1-2 high-friction problem areas
• Form pilot trios with clear problem definitions
• Establish shared success metrics
• Review and iterate after one quarter

Chapters

• 0:00 - The Business-IT Blame Game Problem
• 1:56 - Life in Technical Purgatory
• 5:29 - Why Traditional Fixes Don't Work
• 10:09 - Introducing the Trio Model
• 15:51 - Implementation and Decision Rights
• 23:42 - Measuring Success with Shared Metrics
• 24:50 - Leadership Changes Required
• 29:25 - Getting Started: A Practical Approach