Leave Work Unassigned and See Who Steps Forward
I think this is one of the arguments for holocracy. The entire purpose of management is to efficiently assign work to individual contributors. Instead of leaving a few work items unassigned, holocracy leaves <i>all</i> the work items unassigned, and then the ones that get done are the ones that are most important to the team.<p>I&#x27;m not saying I buy the idea, and in fact that the same arguments against holocracy work against the author&#x27;s approach.<p><pre><code>    Instead, at the next department meeting, I talked about how impressed I was 
    with what those teams had done, and how it was going to be important for us 
    to spread that good practice to other teams. Without explicitly saying so, I 
    let it be known that this was something people could work on.
</code></pre>
And what if nobody had stepped up? Would the author have left it at that, undermining their political power by showing that they could be ignored with no ill effects? Or would they have then appointed someone to force continuous integration upon everyone (thus creating resentment due to the false choice presented)?<p>If you&#x27;re going to manage, manage. If you&#x27;re going to be hands-off, be hands-off. But this half-and-half nonsense combines the worst of holocracy and traditional management.