12 May 2026
Who owns the definition when three squads share a tile
Joint ownership sounds grown-up until a Thursday review, when three squads each believe they may edit the window. In Metric Charter Studio we treat “shared tile” as a design problem, not a culture problem.
Owner, steward, consumers
The owner names the English definition and signs freeze addenda. The steward keeps the query and the exception log honest. Consumers — other squads, marketing, support — may request changes. They may not silently ship a new denominator because their OKR would look kinder.
When three squads truly share a behaviour, we still appoint one owner. The others become named consumers with a documented escalation: a written request, a review-room slot, and a date. If nobody will take the owner seat, the tile is not ready for a board pack. Park it as an operational diagnostic.
What joint ownership is allowed to mean
Two signatures on the charter, one escalation path, and a rule that disagreements pause the number rather than average it. Averaging two windows is not compromise; it is a third unpublished metric.
We have watched UK marketplace teams try “rotating ownership” by quarter. It produces seasonal definitions. Finance notices. So do journalists, eventually.
A practical test
Ask: if this number is wrong on Monday, whose calendar gets the first meeting? If the answer is a Slack channel, you do not have an owner. Write that down before you argue about SQL.