Someone has to own it
Software without an owner works, mostly, and nobody knows why. Every system needs a name on it — not a team, a name.
Software without an owner is a haunted house. It works, mostly, and nobody knows why. The lights stay on because three years ago someone configured something, and that someone is now busy — or gone.
Every company has at least one of these. It’s usually important. The payroll export. The pricing calculator. The integration that reconciles the two systems leadership trusts.
What ownership actually means
Not writing code. Ownership is three things, and one name holds all of them.
Watching. They know when it’s broken before the customers do, because the logs or the numbers or the Monday-morning rhythm tell them.
Deciding. They have the authority to say what changes, in what order, and what doesn’t change this quarter.
Explaining. They can tell a new person what the system does, why it does it that way, and who to call when it misbehaves.
Committees are not owners. A committee watches nothing and decides everything slowly. Where everyone is responsible, no one is — and the software drifts.
The audit
For each system that matters, three questions. How many people can explain it? Who gets pinged when it acts weird? What happens on a Friday afternoon if that person is on a beach?
One good answer to the first question is the default condition of custom software everywhere. It is also, quietly, a single point of failure with a vacation schedule.
Assign it before launch, not after
Ownership decided at launch is a role, written down while the knowledge is fresh. Decided two years later, it’s an archaeology project — reverse-engineering intent from behaviour, at the worst possible moment, usually the week something broke.
The handover is part of building, not an afterthought: here’s what it does, here’s why, here’s the manual, here’s who to call. Software that ships without an owner isn’t finished. It’s abandoned on a delay.
Every system needs a name on it. Not a team — a name.
Working on something this applies to? Tell us about it — thirty minutes, no pitch.