Lesson 7 / 26

Teams, Roles and Operating Model

Decide who owns AI work: central team, embedded teams or a hybrid with shared standards.

Who does what

Typical roles: an executive sponsor who funds and unblocks; a product owner who owns the business outcome; engineers and data specialists who build; domain experts who define "good" and review outputs; security, privacy and legal advisers; and a risk or governance lead. Organisations usually choose between a centre of excellence (central team sets standards and builds shared tools), embedded teams in each business unit, or a hybrid: a small central team for standards, platform and governance, with product teams doing the delivery.

A simple RACI

R = does the work, A = accountable (one person), C = consulted, I = informed. One accountable owner per decision avoids "everyone thought someone else approved it".

Decision / activity            Sponsor  Product  Eng  Legal/Priv  Risk
Choose use case & success metric   A       R       C      I          C
Approve data use                    I       C       C      A          C
Set evaluation pass criteria        I       A       R      C          C
Approve launch                      A       R       C      C          C
Handle an incident                  I       A       R      C          C

Quick check: Why name exactly one accountable person per decision?

  • So responsibility is clear and nothing falls between roles
  • Because committees are illegal
  • To reduce the number of meetings to zero
  • Accountability slows decisions down by design
Answer

So responsibility is clear and nothing falls between roles — A single owner can be asked, decide and be held to account.