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Two-in-a-Box

A leadership arrangement in which a business lead and a technology lead jointly run one unit, share the same KPIs and are held accountable together for its results.

Implementation

Two-in-a-box pairs one leader from the business with one from technology at the head of the same platform, product or service. Both sign up to the same roadmap and the same measures, and both are assessed on them. DBS Bank used it for each of its 33 platforms from 2018; its CIO at the time described platforms as “co-developed and maintained by the business and its technology partners who work together on joint goals.”

It fails in a predictable way. If each leader keeps a separate scorecard, the pair reverts to client and supplier within a few months: the business specifies, technology delivers, and a missed target turns into an argument about whose fault it was. The shared line on the scorecard, with part of both leaders’ pay attached to it, is what holds the arrangement together, and it is the step most organisations leave out when they copy the structure.

A quick test of whether it is real: ask each of the two leaders what their top three measures are this year. If the lists differ, the box has two occupants but not one owner.

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