Problem
Scenario
You’re leading multiple engineering teams working on related product areas, and you’re seeing different ways of planning, reviewing, and shipping work emerge over time. Some leaders want one standard process to improve predictability and cross-team coordination, while others argue their teams move faster when they can operate independently.
Question
How do you decide whether to standardize a process across teams or let teams move independently?
What Makes This Hard
- Standardization can improve coordination but add overhead.
- Autonomy can preserve speed but create cross-team friction.
- Different stakeholders optimize for different outcomes: predictability, speed, reliability, or morale.
Practicing as: Engineering Manager interview at AdobeHi, I'll play your Adobe interviewer for the Engineering Manager role. Candidates describe these interviews as mixed and hard, so expect me to be structured and detail-hungry. Take your time with the question above and answer like we're in the room.
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