Operating Cadence
Part of Startup operating systems
Defining responsibilities in a small founding team
Map founding-team work, decision boundaries, overlaps and cover so recurring responsibilities have clear owners.
Define founding-team responsibilities around work that needs an owner, not around titles. Agree who keeps each recurring activity moving, who makes its routine decisions under the team's existing approvals, and when another founder must be consulted. Record gaps and overlaps while they are easy to resolve.
Map the work founders actually do
Start with recent work and list continuing responsibilities: handling incoming customer issues, maintaining the product, approving commitments, checking delivery and keeping essential records. Include work that happens rarely but cannot be ignored. Describe each item as an outcome or continuing duty, not a bundle of tiny tasks.
Ask every founder to mark the work they believe they own and the work they believe someone else owns. Compare the answers. A mismatch may reveal two founders each expecting the other to reply to a customer, or both negotiating a change to the same offer.
For each responsibility / Record the answer
- Primary owner
- Who makes sure the work is done and visible?
- Contributors
- Whose information or work is needed?
- Decision boundary
- What may the owner decide under existing approvals?
- Escalation
- What change or risk requires another founder?
- Cover
- Who takes over if the owner is unavailable?
One person can fill several columns. The aim is a clear handover, not new roles the team does not have.
Separate doing the work from deciding an exception
Owning customer support may mean answering ordinary enquiries and monitoring unresolved cases. It need not include authority to promise a new product feature or approve an unusual concession. State a boundary people can recognise during work: “The support owner can resolve cases within the agreed policy; proposed exceptions go to the founder responsible for the offer before a customer is promised a change.”
For decisions that cross responsibilities, identify who brings the information together and who makes the call under the team's existing approval arrangements. Tell affected founders the result. A formal framework is unnecessary for every small choice; use more structure when the cost of misunderstanding is high.
Resolve overlaps and unclaimed work
An overlap is not always waste. Two founders may both contribute to delivery. Choose one primary owner for the result and state what the other supplies. If the division still feels artificial, test it on the next real handover and adjust it.
For unclaimed work, name someone to arrange a decision about ownership and set a follow-up date. If the work cannot wait, agree who will handle it in the meantime. “We all handle it” may work for occasional help, but it gives nobody responsibility for noticing that a recurring activity has stopped. If a founder cannot realistically carry a proposed duty, change the allocation or reduce the work.
Revisit the map when the work changes
Keep the responsibility map where the team can find it. Review it when a founder's availability changes, a customer commitment creates new work, or someone joins the team. Ask whether the named owner still has the information and authority to act. Update the handovers people use, not just the document.
Each founder should be able to answer: “What am I responsible for, what may I decide, and who takes over when I cannot?”
