Case: How to balance structure and freedom?

Over the past two years, I have worked with an organisation that wanted to find a better balance between freedom and structure in its agile ways of working. The challenge was to create a framework that ensured cross-organisational coherence without suffocating team autonomy. The solution became a model built around guardrails, rumble strips and sunset clauses, creating flexible yet clear boundaries for how teams in the organisation work.

What are guardrails, rumble strips and self-management?

To make the concept come alive for the organisation, we used metaphors from traffic:

• Guardrails are the fixed rules that protect us from the biggest risks and keep us on track. Like guardrails along a road, they help ensure that we do not crash in the bends.
• Rumble strips are guiding practices that are not mandatory, but help teams navigate more intelligently. When you drive over them, you get a warning and a chance to correct your course.
• Self-management covers the areas where teams have full autonomy to experiment and adapt.

A fresh start

We began with a radical step: all existing rules were scrapped. From there, leadership defined a set of very basic guardrails, the non-negotiable rules needed to ensure direction and stability. These guardrails became the starting point for the work that followed.

We then invited teams to take part in workshops to identify the need for additional guardrails and rumble strips. The goal was to create a flexible model that combined structure with freedom and gave teams ownership of their own working framework. The model was built around three key elements: guardrails, rumble strips and sunset clauses, which together created a balanced and dynamic way of working.

The proposed guardrails and rumble strips that were discussed, but ultimately considered better left to self-management, were documented as self-management. This served one purpose only: to show that the discussion had taken place. All other self-management was left undefined, because we had made a principled decision that anything not explicitly defined as a guardrail or a rumble strip was, by definition, self-management.

This decision was based on the recognition that we neither could nor wanted to define rules for everything. Partly to avoid bureaucracy, but also to give teams the freedom to experiment and take responsibility for their work.

That meant that as long as there was no guardrail or rumble strip in a given area, teams were free to work as they saw fit, without fear of doing something “wrong”. That freedom was combined with a clear process:

• If a team’s self-managed actions still created problems for other teams, the area would be brought up for discussion at the next half-yearly retrospective. There it would be assessed whether there was a need to define a new rumble strip or a new guardrail.

This approach requires a high degree of maturity, responsibility and trust, both from leadership and from the teams themselves. Leadership had to trust that people were doing their best with good intentions, and employees had to take responsibility for their decisions and results.

Self-management as a core principle

A central principle in the approach was, as mentioned, the desire to make as much as possible a matter of self-management within each team, and thereby have as few guardrails and rumble strips as possible. That meant, among other things, that everything happening internally within teams was by default self-management. Teams had full freedom to choose their own methods and processes, as long as it did not affect other teams. Examples included:

• Ways of working: Teams decide for themselves how they structure their work and solve problems.
• Internal agreements: Teams create their own rules and forms of collaboration without requirements from leadership.

Cross-team coordination: guardrails and rumble strips

While self-management was the default within teams, cross-team collaboration often required a higher degree of coordination. Here, rumble strips and guardrails were used to create shared frameworks.

Examples from the organisation

Guardrails:

• Strategic capacity: Over time, at least 50% of a team’s capacity must be used to realise the strategic OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) defined by the strategy groups.
• Sprint length: All teams work in two-week sprints in order to create a shared organisational rhythm and enable alignment across teams and across the organisation.

Rumble strips:

• Feedback loops: Teams are encouraged to actively gather feedback from users and stakeholders in order to validate and improve what they deliver.
• Learning and development: Teams are encouraged to create space for individual and collective learning, for example by taking part in relevant courses, internal knowledge-sharing sessions or experiments, but how this is done is up to the team.

It was also agreed that if a team chose to drive across a rumble strip, it should be a conscious choice. The team could expect leadership or other teams to be curious and perhaps openly question the decision. That dialogue was part of creating a culture shaped by openness and learning. But in the end, it remained the team’s own responsibility to make the decision. Rumble strips were guidance, not rules.

Sunset clauses: rules with an expiry date

To avoid unnecessary bureaucracy, all guardrails and rumble strips were automatically given a six-month sunset clause. After that, they were brought back for evaluation in a full-day retrospective involving all teams. The purpose was to assess guardrails and rumble strips based on their perceived value and actively choose them back in, so that only relevant and valuable elements were kept.

The world is rarely black and white, and the evaluation often resulted in guardrails and rumble strips being adjusted and improved rather than simply rejected or retained in their original form. This flexibility is a good example of how a learning organisation works: by adapting based on experience and continuously challenging the status quo in order to improve results.

An example of change

One of the many outcomes of the retrospective was an adjustment to the guardrail around Sprint Reviews. Originally, it had been a requirement that all teams should hold Sprint Reviews. But in practice, some teams found that the format did not always create value for their stakeholders.

After the evaluation, the guardrail was changed to a broader requirement for transparency around progress and plans. It then became up to each team to choose how best to ensure that transparency, whether through a Sprint Review, which became a rumble strip, an asynchronous report, or through ongoing dialogue with stakeholders. This gave teams greater freedom while still ensuring the necessary transparency.

Another example of learning

Another important decision in the retrospective concerned the format of the retrospectives themselves. Instead of leadership deciding in advance that a new retrospective should take place every six months, it was decided that teams themselves should assess whether a new retrospective would create enough value to justify a full day’s investment. This approach not only supports team autonomy, but also highlights the importance of prioritising value in everything the organisation does.

A dynamic and adaptable organisation

By working deliberately with the definitions of self-management, guardrails and rumble strips, the organisation created a flexible model that promotes autonomy without compromising coherence. The sunset clauses ensured that the rules were continuously evaluated, challenged and adjusted based on concrete experience and needs.

But it is absolutely essential to make this adaptation an ongoing process, so that the guardrails and rumble strips that once felt new and appropriate do not end up as outdated bureaucratic leftovers that no one can remember the reason for. Introducing and maintaining guardrails and rumble strips is therefore less about the individual rules themselves and more about creating a culture in which rules and frameworks are continuously assessed, adjusted and adapted to ensure they remain relevant.

Relevant for your organisation?

This case hopefully illustrates how an organisation can balance structure and freedom in a meaningful way. By using self-management as the foundation, working consciously with the culture, and establishing clear frameworks for cross-team collaboration, teams can both innovate and collaborate effectively.

I have worked with this organisation for more than two years and have advised on everything from strategic organisation design, culture, the introduction of OKRs for goal follow-up, agile ways of working, leadership coaching and much more. This case is therefore just one element in a broader transformation process, where the organisation has moved towards a more dynamic and learning-oriented way of working.

If your organisation is facing the challenge of finding the right balance between autonomy and structure, this model may be a strong tool. By allowing teams to self-manage, using rumble strips as guidance, and implementing guardrails where they make sense and create confidence, you can create a way of working that is both agile and engaging.

If you would like to hear more about how this approach was implemented, and how it might help your organisation, you are very welcome to get in touch. I would be happy to share my experience and help you create a more dynamic and learning-oriented organisation.