#05 0Pro - Part 2
Having Fun 🤓
REF: 0Pro - Part 1 (A Pain in My…)
Let’s begin by noting that 0Pro aims to solve a larger problem than what Jira, Notion, or Linear were built to address.
At 0Flips, the mission is to build — and help build — many projects and businesses. As those projects mature into businesses and those businesses begin to scale, being exceptionally efficient at managing people and projects becomes critical to that mission.
As we consider how humans and AI agents will work together in hybrid systems, it’s important to rethink how work has traditionally been done in order to build a foundation that supports a new way to work.
0Pro introduces several principles that influence all levels of work — from organization, planning, and prioritization to accountability, hiring, and performance management.
This post highlights the two most foundational principles that set the stage for the rest, which I’ll cover in the next post.
Principle #1: Org Functions (vs Org Charts)
Most companies have inherited the idea of departments from legacy organizational design, structured around hierarchy and headcount management.
In my experience, this often leads to work being created to serve individuals or departments rather than the company as a whole.
Org Functions remove the human element and focus purely on the capabilities and work required to run and grow a company. The mental shift is subtle but powerful — from thinking about who has to do the work to what work needs to be done.
When functions and work become the foundation, decision-making and accountability gain clarity and simplicity.
Departments can still exist to align people, but they should be viewed as temporary executors or custodians of the company’s functions — roles that can pass between people or departments over time.
Example:
A lean Marketing Department that owns the company’s marketing, brand management, design, and data insights “functions” becomes overwhelmed and decides to spin off a new department to own the brand management function.Because all work and knowledge for brand management are captured as a “function,” plugging in new owners becomes seamless and persistent across the company’s lifespan.
Principle #2: Roles > People
A decade ago, I worked with a team of scientists on implementing a Treasury Board of Canada mandate on Information Management (IM) across the Army.
It was there that I gained a newfound respect for the impact of great IM policies in a world that values data quantity over quality. Our mandate was simple but transformative — decouple work and responsibility from people.
You may be wondering, “Why does this matter?” That’s where I was back then.
I was tasked with interviewing all levels of the Army — military, civilians, generals, chiefs of staff, operations, training, and more — asking questions like:
What are you responsible for?
What processes do you own?
What work do you help with?
What work do you own that you shouldn’t?
The results were eye-opening. Even in an organization as structured as the Army, inefficiency was rampant.
A few lessons learned
In a world that should have clear accountability, everyone thought they owned everything — until things went wrong.
Despite defined ranks and roles, work was often tied to people and their egos. When people deployed, were promoted, or transferred, the work often stopped or was lost.
There was strong resistance to the idea that a person was simply a contributor to a role rather than the owner of it. But when they “got it,” it was transformative.
Many individuals were performing multiple roles, making performance management difficult and inconsistent — a reality in most organizations.
In the end, the Army transitioned to role-based work through technology, education, and policy.
Later, when automating HQ decision-making processes, that structure made the work much simpler. Dozens of people had moved through those roles since then, yet accountability and processes persisted — the system worked.
0Pro in Practice
To understand how this applies to 0Pro and the projects it supports, recall the importance of Org Functions — that work drives everything.
In 0Pro, capabilities, objectives, and tasks are owned by Roles, while people are assigned to those Roles. The work and knowledge stay with the role, even as people come and go.
Example:
As the founding technical person at Tribe, I’m responsible for multiple roles — CTO, Head of Product, Engineering, Data, Security, and IM.During compliance reviews, I also act as CISO and DPO, adding even more hats.
With 0Pro, I’ve created and assigned myself to each of these roles. As I catalog the work I own, I associate it with roles rather than myself.
Over time, as workload increases and I start dropping balls, I can make informed, data-driven hiring decisions — perhaps bringing in an intermediate Product Manager, consultant, or intern to offset specific work — rather than instinctively hiring a Head of Product who may add overhead instead of efficiency.
General Rules & Considerations
Role before Person:
Hiring “the amazing person” should unlock defined work and outcomes. If not, you’re gambling on emotion. If you find a great person, define the work and outcomes first — or wait until the role exists.Roles first, then hires:
Roles should be held by existing people until capacity becomes an issue. For example, hire a new Sales Manager only once the first reaches capacity — creating a second Sales Manager role rather than replacing the person.
Next
In the next post, I’ll cover the three layers of work — Capabilities, Objectives, and Tasks — and the importance of creating space for both the business and product teams, while pulling both into the same unified work solution.
Beyond that, we’ll dive into planning and prioritization principles, followed by a deeper look at performance management, hiring, and the human + AI hybrid foundation that 0Pro is designed to enable.
👀 I have my brand agent format my articles for clarity and grammar. I usually go behind an remove the “—” pauses that AI love so much. I am no longer fighting it 😛