Degree of Alignment

agree on the degree of alignment for each one. Some of the levels that I’ve found useful are:

I’ll do it. Stuff that I will personally be responsible for doing. When you’re going to do something, it’s better to be explicit and avoid confusion on responsibilities. Best used sparingly.

Preview. I’d like to be involved early and often. This is probably an area where we aren’t quite on the same page and this will help us avoid redoing work.

Review. I’d like to weigh in before it gets published or fully rolled out, but we’re pretty aligned on the topic.

Notes. Projects I’d like to follow but don’t have much I can add to. Often used for wide-reaching initiatives on which we are well aligned, and I want to be able to represent my colleagues’ work correctly.

No surprises. The work that we’re currently aligned on but requires updates to keep my mental model intact. If I’m asked about a related problem, I want to be able to answer it correctly. This is particularly important for me, as my effectiveness is evaluated based on my ability to stay on top of new problems.

Let me know. We’re well aligned on this, since my colleagues have done it before and done it well. I want them to let me know if something comes up that I can help with, but otherwise I’m totally confident it’ll go well, so we don’t need to talk about this much.⊕ (Larson 2019, 3.8)

This reminds me of the 7 levels of delegation