The Myth of [Fully] Autonomous Teams in Enterprise Organisations

I'll be upfront about it: there’s no such thing as fully unbounded autonomy in enterprise organisations. 👇

We keep hearing about the push for Autonomous Teams in large enterprises, especially driven by the big consultancies who seem to pitch the same PowerPoint deck everywhere (remember when they were “spotifying” everyone?).

Increasing autonomy is a great idea, and I fully support it, especially when it comes to driving product-market fit, innovation and growth.

But here’s the reality: ❌ there’s no such thing as fully unbounded autonomy in enterprise organisations.

Every autonomy is PARTIAL and BOUNDED. Yet, I see teams waving flags like: ❕“Leave us alone, we’re autonomous!” ❕“We don’t want to depend on that core team anymore—give us the budget to hire our own people so we can be autonomous!”

Sure, in startups, you can enjoy unprecedented autonomy. I’ve been there myself. However, in complex enterprises, where almost every business initiative touches multiple assets and core platforms, true autonomy is a myth. Think about it: ERPs, CRMs, billing systems, identity management—these core systems are the backbone of every business.

So, how far should organisations go in the pursuit of the autonomy dream? 🤔

Which capabilities should be:

Outsourced Externally?
Outsourced to Internal Teams?
Embedded into “Autonomous Teams”?

This Centralise vs. Decentralise debate isn’t really about “ways of working”—it’s an economic decision. 💰⚖️

Let’s face it: you’re already outsourcing things like computing because it’s no longer economically viable to build internal data centres. The same logic applies to other capabilities.

❔Would it make sense to embed a People Partner into every team? ❔What about a Cybersecurity Expert? ❔Or specialists from every single core platform?

Should every team have these roles embedded to reduce dependencies and increase autonomy?

Probably not. ❌

➖ The pursuit of autonomy needs to be tempered by economic reality. ➖

💬 What do you think? Should we go all-in on decentralising capabilities in the name of autonomy, or is a balance between autonomy and centralised services the way to go? 👇