A handoff is not abolished by moving the border

Vera began with a sensible question: who can decide? The answer was a diagram containing eleven arrows and one small circle labeled later. We removed the arrows. Chip pointed out that the decisions still depend on security, finance, operations and a colleague who is currently on leave. We congratulated him for identifying the new cross-functional team.

A combined organization can reduce delay when a team truly owns an outcome from start to finish. That requires authority, enough skills and a clear way to settle competing priorities. Without those, the old handoffs become conversations inside the box. Internal conversations are harder to count, so the quarterly report improves immediately.

THE FIRM’S WORKING MODEL

The handoff reduction plan

  1. 01Three teams

    Work crosses two visible boundaries.

  2. 02One organization

    The boundaries move indoors.

  3. 03One owner

    The owner requests a larger inbox.

Unresolved decisions return as alignment.

SoftBoulders’ model for reducing a diagram before reducing the work.

The layer has left the chart

We also simplified management layers. Flint achieved this by deleting the middle row in the presentation. The people in that row had been translating strategy downward and risk upward. Strategy can now descend without translation, while risk has been asked to use the stairs.

The remaining managers received broader spans of control. One now oversees design, delivery, performance, capability, culture and a plant that appeared after the office move. We call this end-to-end ownership because the manager can see both ends from a considerable distance.

Chip asked whether fewer layers also means faster decisions. Flint said yes, then requested a short paper so leadership could confirm. The paper needs comments from the former functions, all of which now sit inside the same product organization. Their replies are no longer handoffs. They are a coordinated chorus of separate conditions.

Small teams need somewhere to put the large decisions

The useful version of this change is less theatrical. Give a small team a real customer outcome, the people needed to deliver it and authority over ordinary tradeoffs. Make the remaining dependencies explicit. Keep an escalation route for decisions that genuinely span the company. Then measure whether the work moves, not whether the chart has become calmer.

SoftBoulders has adopted most of this approach. Each team owns an outcome, subject to twenty-seven reserved decisions. The reserved decisions live in a central register owned by nobody, because naming an owner would add a box.

The final organization chart is a large rectangle containing the words everyone together. It has no arrows, no layers and no indication of who can approve a release. Flint says this demonstrates trust. Chip is carrying the rectangle to the next meeting.

Behind the brief: Canva’s restructuring and product-organization consolidation

Canva said a restructuring would affect 1,271 people, or 22% of the company, through departures, role changes or relocations. Its plan combines Product, Growth and Platform into one Product Org, reduces management layers and narrower specialties, and concentrates more product work in Sydney. Reuters reported that Canva’s growth had slowed for the first time in a decade. SoftBoulders’ one-box operating model and all workplace scenes are invented.

News date: Nov 4, 2026. Article published: Nov 9, 2026. The policies and proposals in this article are SoftBoulders’ comic response; the linked sources describe the underlying events. Editorial notes.

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