Buoys, not boundaries

While reading The DevOps Handbook, by Gene Kim, Jez Humble, Patrick Debois and John Willis, I’ve come across a great metaphor provided by Ralph Loura, at that time CIO of HP, during his speech at the 2015 DevOps Enterprise Summit.

«Internally, we described our goal as creating “buoys, not boundaries”. Instead of drawing hard boundaries that everyone has to stay within, we put buoys that indicate deep areas of the channel where you’re safe and supported. You can go past the buoys as long as you follow the organizational principles. After all, how are we ever going to see the next innovation that helps us win if we’re not exploring and testing at the edges? As leaders, we need to navigate the channel, mark the channel, and allow people to explore past it.»

I wish further organizations started focusing more on buoys and less on boundaries. I wish they stopped drowning in their boundaries…