We are designing our Accountability Chart and realize that our IT and Product Development functions are combined into a single super-seat held by our lead developer. He loves both roles and does them well, but we know these should be two distinct seats for our future structure. Since we do not have the budget to hire another high-level developer right now, how do we structure this on our chart today without creating confusion?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

You must design your Accountability Chart based on the ideal future structure of your organization, not your current people or budget constraints. Draw the chart for where the business needs to be to hit your long-term goals and prepare for a clean exit. This means you must draw IT and Product Development as two distinct, separate seats. Once the ideal structure is designed, you can place your lead developer's name in both boxes. This is a critical distinction. He is one person, but he is temporarily sitting in two distinct seats on your chart. By separating the seats, you force clarity on his roles and responsibilities. He must understand that when he is working on IT support, he is accountable for those specific metrics, and when he is working on Product Development, he has a different set of priorities. This prevents the daily, urgent IT issues from completely swallowing his long-term product development work. This approach also highlights your resource gaps. Having his name in two seats makes it obvious to the leadership team where your operational risks lie. As your business grows and cash flow permits, you will know exactly which seat you need to hire for next. When you are ready to hire, you do not need to redefine the roles. You simply pull his name out of the IT seat and place a new hire into that ready-made box, allowing your lead developer to focus entirely on Product Development.