How to Move Faster Without Creating Alignment Debt

A two-step approach to determine what slows your team and restore balance between ownership and alignment

Leaders want speed. The usual advice? Decentralize decisions. Give teams autonomy. Let them move without waiting for approval.

The advice is correct. The solution is incomplete.

Autonomy alone is not enough. Teams need more than permission to act; they need to own the outcome. They need to care about the big picture, not just their own part.

When teams have ownership but lack alignment, you get chaos. Your team moves fast, but often in the wrong direction. One group builds something that clashes with what another team is doing. Decisions that work for one team break things for everyone else. This creates alignment debt—the accumulating cost of teams working out of sync, leading to confusion, wasted work, and stalled projects.

To move fast, you need both ownership and alignment. Most teams never stop to think about where they stand on each dimension or what needs to change to find the right balance.

In this article, I’ll show you a two-step approach to help you understand your current cultu…