Scaling Engineering Teams: Why Cross-Team Alignment Needs a 'Boule' Model

Software engineering teams face a coordination problem when multiple squads must align on shared decisions without collapsing into unproductive large-group meetings. The author argues that neither LeSS nor SAFe fully addresses the root issue, which is ownership rather than room size. Drawing on ancient Athenian governance, the piece proposes a 'Boule'-style cross-team session where each team sends two representatives, reducing single-point-of-failure risk and surfacing unresolved internal disagreements early. A product manager scopes what is and is not on the table, keeping the session focused. The model treats alignment and accountability as distinct: the cross-team session produces shared direction, but each individual team retains ownership of what it ultimately ships.