The old kitchen brigade, with a head chef dictating every plate, seems like a perfect model for tight coordination, but it flips the incentive curve for knowledge workers. In a brigade, the sous‑chef’s value is measured by how well they execute the chef’s vision, not by questioning it, so speed wins over insight.

When product teams copy that hierarchy, engineers and designers spend their energy polishing directives instead of surfacing hidden risks, and the “who‑does‑what” chart becomes a static map that resists change. A famed Michelin‑starred restaurant in Copenhagen once reorganized its pastry section into a flat pod, letting the pastry chef own the menu, sourcing, and plating decisions; the result was a surge in creative desserts and a smoother service flow, proving that autonomy at the decision point trumps a rigid line.

The same logic applies to software: when the person who writes the code also defines the acceptance criteria, feedback loops shorten and the team can pivot without waiting for a distant product owner. However, granting that authority without clear guardrails invites scope creep, so the next step is to bind decision rights to measurable outcomes, not to titles.