When you're working inside a single team, alignment isn't hard. You just know what others are doing and when you don't you just ask. It's not too hard.

When there are multiple teams, it becomes a bit trickier. Each team has their own direction. However, try to add partners and suppliers. Each with different motivations and incentives.

Think about it this way: 2 teams want to integrate. Half way through you find out that one team is building a bridge and the other is building a tunnel. WTF is a common reaction. The overall conclusion is that someone needs to take charge.

Then we come to the following common misconception:

Complete alignment - teams do whatever the leader says.

Complete autonomy - teams do whatever.

Alignment enables autonomy.

There are multiple ingredients required to reach alignment at scale.

  1. Shared purpose

One wild question pops up: What are you working on and why?

Possible answers: