Hello, it’s Alex again.
Last time, we agreed on one thing: trust is not a philosophy. It’s infrastructure. A protocol that can be designed. You reacted, and many of you asked the same question: “Alright, we removed micromanagement. We stopped hovering. We gave autonomy. What next? Will the team just start performing miracles on its own?”
No. It won’t.
Because between the absence of control and the presence of meaningful work, there is a gap. A rather deep one. Today, we’ll talk about how not to fall into it. About how a leader turns a business requirement into a mission, and a mission into energy for the team.
In IT, we are all masters of decomposition. We take a monolithic “build a new search” and break it down into epics, features, tasks. We produce beautifully atomic, perfectly estimated Jira tickets. And that’s where the main trap lies.
The “Closed Ticket” Syndrome: When the Goal Disappears
A backend developer doesn’t see “improve the search user experience.”
They see “SEARCH-457: increase the query_length parameter limit from 100 to 255 characters.”
The ticket is done. The code is written. The PR is reviewed. Time is logged. The sprint is a success.
But where is the connection to the actual goal? There isn’t one.
The team turns into a highly efficient factory for executing abstract instructions. They no longer solve user problems. They close tickets. This is not their fault. It’s a systemic failure in context transmission. I call it the tunnel effect: you see the next few metres of track, but not the destination.
The Leader’s Role: Translator of “Why”, Not Courier of “What”
Your core job as a leader in a trust-based system is decomposing meaning, not just decomposing work.
You are not a human Jira, converting roadmaps into task lists. You are a constant translator between the language of business goals and the language of technical solutions.
Bad:
“Team, next sprint we need to implement the ‘Search History’ feature for users. Here’s the spec.”
Better:
“Team, our analytics shows that 30% of users type the same complex query several times per session. That’s pain. We believe that giving them quick access to query history will increase card-view conversion (CR1) and reduce frustration. Your goal is not ‘create a DB table’, but ‘remove this pain’. Let’s think how best to validate it. Maybe a quick client-side cache and look at the metrics? Or do we need cross-device sync from day one? You’re the experts. You know better.”
See the difference? In the first case, you delegate a task. In the second, you delegate a problem, context, and trust to solve it.
The Tool: Vertical Slices vs Horizontal Layers
Temporarily forget about classic stack-based separation (backend, frontend, mobile). Decompose by value streams.
The classic horizontal approach that kills meaning:
Sprint 1: API design (backend)
Sprint 2: Core logic implementation (backend)
Sprint 3: UI layout (frontend)
Sprint 4: Cross-platform development (mobile)
Sprint 5: Testing and fixes (QA)
Result: five sprints, zero user value, lost context, burnout.
The meaningful vertical approach, built on trust:
Experiment 1 (hypothesis): “Let’s check if users even need history.”
Minimal prototype: a “Repeat last query” button on the frontend, with mocked data. A/B test on 5% of traffic. Do they click it?
Value: hypothesis validated in three days, not three months.
Increment 2 (core): “Base functionality for web.”
Working storage and display of the last five queries on the client side.
Value: first real feature for users.
Increment 3 (scale): “Full service.”
Backend, sync between browser and app, privacy settings.
Value: complete solution.
Each stage delivers a finished, measurable unit of value. The team doesn’t “code a module”. They run experiments and get feedback from reality. The mindset shifts from execution to shared product ownership.
Creating a Culture of “Stupid” Questions
The most important ritual you can introduce is psychological safety around the question “Why?”
When a junior developer asks during planning, “Why do we need this is_hidden field in the API?”, the best answer is not “product requirement”, but turning to the screen and explaining:
“Because in the next phase, users will be able to hide specific queries from their history. This comes from ‘right to be forgotten’ regulations. You’re thinking in the right direction. Maybe there’s a way to support this without a mandatory DB field?”
Your job is not to be a warehouse of answers. Your job is to guarantee that the team has all the data needed to make decisions. Spending twenty minutes of a stand-up explaining business context is not a waste of time. It’s an investment in collective intelligence and autonomy.
Conclusion: From Managing Tasks to Managing Context
The trust we discussed in the first part is the foundation. Meaningful work, created through context sharing and vertical decomposition, is the load-bearing structure of a building where innovation lives.
A team that understands why does not require total control over how. It starts proposing solutions you didn’t expect. It starts arguing with product managers using technical arguments in service of business goals. It stops being a “resource” and becomes a partner.
In modern IT, a leader is not the most experienced coder. A leader is a context architect. A conductor of meaning.
Next time, if this resonates, I suggest we go one level deeper and talk about the most painful topic of all: technical debt. Not as evil, but as a strategic trade-off tool. About how a trusted team, calmly and without drama, decides: “Yes, we’re taking on debt now to test a hypothesis, and here is our repayment plan.”
Write in the comments what else we should cover in this series.
Be effective. And don’t forget about meaning.
With respect,
Alex
P.S. For those who read until the end: a practical one-week challenge. At your next planning session, when you receive a task from product, don’t just read it out. Ask: “Which user pain or business metric does this address?” Then make sure every person in the room hears the answer. Watch how the discussion changes.