Workshop seating for boundary redraws

Who must be in the room when you redraw service domains — and who politely receives the notes afterward.

Boundary workshops fail in two predictable ways: too many spectators, or the wrong decision-makers.

Bring

  • The engineers who can change ownership in code and CI
  • The product lead who can accept a temporary feature freeze on the contested domain
  • Someone from operations who will inherit the new on-call shape

Leave for the readout

  • Executives who need outcomes, not whiteboard arguments
  • Adjacent teams whose services are consumers only — unless a contract break is already planned

Facilitation tip

Write disagreements on the wall. “Pricing owns catalogue price; warehouse owns stock quantity” is a decision. “We should be more aligned” is not. If a disagreement cannot be resolved in the room, record the owner of the follow-up date before lunch ends.

Our engagement stages page shows where workshops sit relative to discovery and handover.