Cancelling Coordination Debt — How to eliminate coordination debt with alignment.

Maybe you’re swimming in coordination debt, frustrated with delayed decisions, bottlenecks, and duplicated efforts. Maybe you’re almost in the clear.

Whatever the reason, it's time to eliminate your debt.

Coordination debt is the friction and inefficiency that accumulates when teams struggle to align their efforts. Left unchecked, it undermines trust, slows decision-making, and leaves organizations gasping for progress.

The route to debt-free? Make your work visible, communicate clearly and concretely, and understand what you signal. This will make your team and others more aligned, productive, and engaged.

Fix it with these six rules:

#1. Define who owns what.

#2. Master the political game.

#3. Decide less; do more.

#4. Make work visible.

#5. Align on outcomes.

#6. Signal trust.

#1 Define who owns what.

Clarity helps. Without clear ownership, work duplicates, hand-offs stall, and confusion spreads. Ownership drives action, eliminates overlaps, and streamlines hand-offs—fewer hand-offs mean fewer errors.

A tried-and-true framework like RACI works as a rulebook, but I’ve found that the terms often trip people up. What’s the difference between Responsible and Accountable? Few know—most use them interchangeably. Consulted and Informed? Often seen as a way to keep people happy in the pecking order, ensuring no one feels left out. Here’s how it really works:

Responsible are the doers; putting in the sweat.

Those Accountable are driving the work—a nice way of saying who gets blamed if everything goes wrong.

If you’re Consulted, it is more than a fly-by; it’s an expectation of valuable input.

Being Informed ensures no one is blindsided and allows them to coordinate their work in parallel with yours.

Tip: At the start of a project, map out a RACI to clarify who does what. Share it widely and keep it alive—document decisions so everyone knows who’s doing what and by when.

#2. Master the political game.

Just because you’ve nailed the meeting or have an impressive project plan doesn’t mean everything will work. In most organizations, informal networks—the political sphere—often dictate how things really get done. Competing agendas, lack of air cover, and poor timing can leave you drowning in coordination debt.

The C and I from RACI can help. This is where you can understand stakeholders, align priorities, and build coalitions that move work forward. Knowing who influences who allows you to unblock bottlenecks. Real relationships reduce friction, and anticipating resistance helps you address blockers before they derail progress.

Just because the technical part of work is good to go doesn’t mean you’re finished. Know who the key stakeholders are and what matters to them. Identify blockers early and address their concerns to prevent the build-up of coordination debt.

Tip: Use a ‘walking-around’ deck. Create a few slides that explain the core elements of your initiative or idea. Keep it deliberately rough—wet paint. Your job with the key stakeholders—the C and I —is to actively solicit their input and support. Let them tweak your idea and put their thumbprint on it.

#3. Decide less; do more.

This happens: A meeting meant to make decisions spirals into constant deliberation. Although I love the book, Simon Sinek launched a thousand endless conversations when he wrote Start With Why. The subtitle should’ve been: Once you’re done with that, make a decision and get on with it.

You see the signs: the meeting after the meeting, decisions in backchannels, side conversations, or grumbles about decision rights. Instead of moving forward, a stuck loop of second-guessing and overthinking.

Coordination debt grows when decisions linger. The antidote? Simplify decision-making and shift focus to action. A decision without execution is no decision at all.

Make decisions cleaner. Limit the voices at the table—fewer people mean fewer debates and faster decisions. Be clear about who decides, who contributes, and who needs to be informed. Ambiguity over decision rights fuels backchanneling, so eliminate it upfront.

Close the loop. Decisions don’t stick without follow-through. Every meeting must end with three things: who is doing what, by when, and how progress will be tracked. When everyone knows the next steps, there’s less room for confusion or excuses.

Act faster. Avoid getting stuck in pursuit of perfection. A “good enough” decision made quickly is often better than a perfect one made too late. Pilot small actions, evaluate their outcomes, and adjust as needed. Action beats inaction every time.

Tip: It may feel petty or pedantic, but summarize the decision in real-time and make sure it is written down for all to see. At the end of the meeting, clarify the what, how, when, and who attached to each decision.

#4. Make work visible.

Everyone has secret work. That’s not meant as a slight—it doesn’t mean you’re cagy or evasive. It simply means you have work that’s hidden from others, unintentionally adding to coordination debt. Transparency is the antidote.

Coordination debt thrives in silos. Hidden efforts—whether accidental or intentional—create misalignment, duplicated work, and missed opportunities. It’s not just about what you’re working on but when you’re doing it. By making both visible, you allow others to coordinate around you, avoid surprises, and eliminate friction.

Shine a light on secret work. Use shared tools, like calendars and project boards, to signal what you’re doing and when you’re doing it. Calendars aren’t just for meetings—they show when key work is happening, helping others coordinate.

Keep teams in sync. Short rituals like stand-ups keep priorities clear. Share what you’re working on, what’s blocking you, and where you need help. Done consistently, they reduce confusion, improve alignment, and build momentum.

Make work visible across teams. This is the hardest gap to close. Across functions and organizations, alignment comes from relationships, shared tools, and regular updates. Cross-functional syncs and project boards ensure transparency, reducing surprises, duplication, and delays.

Tip: If you haven’t started weekly stand-ups, do it. Keep them simple: “Who’s doing what?” and “Who needs help?” Get everyone on the team into a discipline around their calendar—even if they are doing focused work, naming what they are doing and when they are doing it.

#5. Align on outcomes.

Competing goals kill progress. Unfortunately, goal setting is more usually a top-down cascade than a collaborative effort. This leads teams to focus on “my part works” or letting org charts dictate how work gets done instead of aligning around shared outcomes.

Misaligned goals are the fastest way to accumulate coordination debt.

Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) help bridge the gap between strategy and execution. They connect the what and how of team efforts to the broader organizational mission while leaving some room for teams to decide when and how they execute. It’s a framework that creates clarity, fosters collaboration, and ensures alignment without micromanagement.

OKRs clarify success. When done well, teams see a clear roadmap. They understand what good looks like and what they must do to make it happen. This ensures everyone is pulling in the same direction.

Reduce competing priorities. OKRs act as a filter, connecting tactics to strategy and reducing noise in the system. People can focus on what matters most. When conflicts arise, OKRs act as tie-breakers to resolve competing priorities and keep everyone on track.

Foster autonomy. By focusing on outcomes rather than prescribing every step, OKRs give teams the freedom to decide how to achieve their goals.

Tip: Take the time to craft, test, and run your OKRs effectively.

#6. Signal trust.

Trust and psychological safety go hand-in-hand. People feel they can trust the process, the people, and the system when they can be themselves. The obverse must be true. When people can be themselves, they can trust the process, the people, and the system.

Get this right; you unlock more open communication and have a springboard for accountability and follow-through.

Better yet, you reduce micromanagement and over-coordination. You’re in the Goldilocks zone of collaboration. Not too much, not too little, but just enough.

This is all about people, and it starts with you.

Signaling trust is about more than just intent—it’s about consistency. You want people to behave the same way on Team 1 (the team they are on) as they do on Team 2 (the team they lead).

On Team 1, this means showing up authentically, contributing candidly, and delivering reliably. On Team 2, signaling trust is about owning your mistakes, not shifting the blame. It’s about asking for—and being open to—input. It’s about delegating responsibility and stepping back to let others succeed.

Tip: It’s easier to signal trust on Team 2 than it is on Team 1. Because: fear and control. On Team 2, delegate. On Team 1, start by being transparent. Share what you’re working on, where you’re stuck, and where you need help. Openness begets trust.

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