zerohash · Cross-functional ownership

Implemented a tool for a team that wasn’t even mine.

TSE had a Slack-based support problem. Requests could get lost, the work was hard to quantify, and the team was wasting time. TSE did not report to me at the time. I decided that was not a particularly good reason to ignore it.

The business case

I dug into how TSE worked and estimated how much time was being lost to the existing workflow. Then I modeled the time we could save with Thena and documented the harder-to-quantify benefits: fewer client requests disappearing in Slack, better visibility into issue volume and types, better process-improvement data, and real support metrics when major prospects asked for them.

Then I owned the boring parts too

Finding a tool is easy. Getting it safely and usefully into a real company is the work.

I did the vendor diligence, researched competitor pricing, negotiated the commercial terms, got the right people in Finance, Legal, Compliance, and elsewhere involved, secured approval, implemented it, learned the product, wrote the documentation, and remained the official admin.

The mildly ridiculous detail

My own team did not use the tool. I just thought the business needed it. This is either a good example of cross-functional ownership or evidence that I have trouble minding my own business. I’m comfortable with both interpretations.

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