We are a lean team of ten people, and everyone feels like they are doing parts of five different jobs. When we try to write only five core roles for each seat, we end up with massive gaps that nobody is taking accountability for. How do we design clean seats for a small, highly collaborative team?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

In a lean team, people will naturally wear multiple hats. The secret to managing this on the Accountability Chart is to remember that you are mapping seats, not people. A single person can sit in multiple seats, but each seat must remain structurally pure. Do not try to combine different operational functions into one messy seat just because one person is doing both. If your operations manager also handles HR, you should have two distinct seats on your chart: one for Operations and one for HR. Put that person's name in both boxes. By keeping the seats separate, you clearly define the five core roles for each function. This prevents critical tasks from falling through the cracks and makes it obvious when a seat is becoming too large for one person to handle. As your company grows and you prepare to scale or exit, this structure makes delegation simple. When you have the budget, you can easily peel one of those seats off and hand it to a new hire without having to rewrite your entire organizational structure. Keep your seats defined by function, let your lean team wear multiple hats temporarily, and maintain absolute clarity on who is accountable for what outcome.