Why is enterprise steering a new function?#
Once machine capacity is cheap, human attention becomes the scarce resource, and nothing in existing team models allocates it across missions. Team Topologies describes how teams are shaped and how they interact. It does not say who decides which mission gets the security architect's Thursday, or what happens when five reasonable requests add up to an impossible one. Enterprise steering holds those decision rights and sets the portfolio of missions.
How does enterprise steering operate?#
Through the Control Room. Steering needs to see where judgment is waiting across every mission at once, then act on that evidence: move a decision right, rebalance an attention budget or pause a mission.
Its other job is arbitration. When two missions compete for the same scarce judgment, or their delegation boundaries disagree, someone has to hold the final call, and who decides must be agreed before the conflict arises.