AWE Team FAQ¶
Questions Team Members Will Ask (And Our Answers) Version: 1.0 | April 2026 | Internal — Confidential
Unfamiliar term? See the AWE Glossary.
About This Document¶
These are the questions we expect when rolling out the AWE organizational model. Grouped by theme. Answers are direct and reference specific AWE framework elements where relevant.
1. My Role & Career¶
Q: Am I losing my job?¶
No. AWE is a restructure, not a reduction. Every current team member has a place in the new model. Roles are changing — some significantly — but the headcount isn't shrinking. The goal is to make every person more effective with agentic tooling, not to replace people with it.
Q: What's my new title? How do I know if I'm a BSA or TSA?¶
Leadership will communicate individual role assignments directly. In general: - If your work is primarily customer-facing (account management, implementation, solution design), you're likely a BSA. - If your work is primarily technical (engineering, platform development, integrations), you're likely a TSA. - If your work is operational (payments, compliance, support), you're in Worksuite Services under the Head of Services and PayOps.
Some roles don't map cleanly. That's expected and those conversations will happen 1:1.
Q: What happened to my manager?¶
AWE has near-zero management layers. The traditional manager role — assigning work, approving PTO, conducting performance reviews, routing information — is replaced by a combination of: - STO ownership (you own your work products directly) - People Success (VP of People Success) handles wellbeing, engagement, conflict resolution - People Experience (COO) ensures you have the right tools, access, and processes - D3 framework for peer decision-making when disputes arise - CSA as tiebreaker for resource allocation, not as a day-to-day manager
Q: Who do I report to now?¶
Solution Architects (BSAs and TSAs) fall under the CSA. Worksuite Services team members fall under the Head of Services and PayOps. Core function ICs fall under their respective WLT owner (CEO or COO). But "reporting to" in AWE doesn't mean traditional management. The WLT focuses on People & Execution, not day-to-day task assignment.
Q: Does this affect my compensation?¶
The restructure is about roles and operating model, not compensation changes. Any compensation questions should be directed to People Success (Diana).
Q: What does career growth look like without managers?¶
Career growth is driven by the scope and impact of the work products you own, not by climbing a management ladder. A TSA who initiates and leads a major PSB is demonstrating senior capability. A BSA who manages 10+ customer relationships with high outcomes is demonstrating senior capability. People Success will work on formalizing growth paths within the AWE model.
Q: I'm currently a product manager. What happens to me?¶
The product function is eliminated as a standalone role. Product managers' skills — customer understanding, prioritization, cross-functional coordination — are valuable and map well to the BSA role. The difference: you'll work directly with TSAs instead of writing PRDs and handing them to engineering. Specific transition plans will be communicated individually.
Q: I'm currently an engineering manager. What happens to me?¶
Engineering management as a function goes away. Former EMs typically have strong technical backgrounds and move into TSA roles, potentially taking STO on complex TSBs and PSBs. Your people skills remain valuable too — you may naturally gravitate toward mentoring other TSAs or contributing to D3 facilitation. Individual conversations will clarify the best fit.
2. How Work Gets Done¶
Q: How do I know what to work on?¶
- BSAs: Your CAP (Customer Account Plan) is your strategic guide. Customer needs drive your work. You design solutions using ICE and engage TSAs when technical work is needed.
- TSAs: BSAs bring you work via ICE Specs. Between TSBs, you look for PSB opportunities (patterns you've seen across multiple customer builds). You also contribute to active PSBs.
- Worksuite Services: Operational work continues flowing through your domain. You also contribute domain expertise to BCs and PSBs when your knowledge is needed.
Q: What's a Build Cycle? Why only 3 days?¶
A Build Cycle (BC) is the smallest unit of shippable work. Max 3 calendar days from Discuss to ship. The 3-day cap exists because: - It forces tight scoping (no scope creep by design) - The downside of a wrong approach is 3 days, not 3 months - It creates a fast feedback rhythm with customers - Information stays fresh (the person who discussed the problem is the same person verifying the solution, 3 days later)
If something can't fit in 3 days, you split it into multiple BCs. Every time.
Q: What happened to sprints?¶
Gone. Sprints, backlog grooming, sprint planning, retrospectives — all eliminated. The 3-day Build Cycle replaces the sprint as the unit of delivery. DPEV (Discuss, Plan, Execute, Verify) replaces the ceremony around it. You don't plan two weeks of work; you start a BC, ship it, start the next one.
Q: What happened to Jira / our project management tool?¶
Work products (CAPs, CSBs, TSBs, BCs) replace the traditional ticket system. How we track them will be communicated separately, but the concept of a backlog with hundreds of prioritized tickets is gone. If something is important enough to build, it goes into a BC now. If it's not, it doesn't sit in a queue.
Q: Who prioritizes what gets built?¶
- Customer work: BSAs prioritize using ICE. The BSA decides what their customers need most and designs solutions accordingly.
- Platform investment: TSAs initiate PSBs when they see recurring patterns. If there's a dispute about priority, D3 resolves it among peers. The CSA breaks ties if D3 can't.
- There is no product team setting a roadmap. Prioritization is distributed to the people closest to the work.
Q: How do I handle a disagreement with a peer about priorities or approach?¶
Use D3: Discuss, Debate, Decide. Surface the disagreement openly. Challenge each other's assumptions. Reach consensus. If you genuinely can't agree, the CSA makes the call. The CSA is a tiebreaker, not an approver — you don't need permission; you need resolution.
Q: What does a typical day look like?¶
Check the BSA Handbook (Section 6) or TSA Handbook (Section 7) for detailed daily/weekly rhythms. The short version: - BSAs: Morning agent briefing, customer calls and ICE Specs mid-morning, TSA coordination midday, proactive solution design afternoon. - TSAs: Check for new BSA requests morning, deep build time (Execute) for most of the day, Verify and ship late afternoon. - No standup meetings. No status updates. Your shipped BCs are your status update.
3. AI & Agentic Tooling¶
Q: Am I required to use AI tools?¶
Yes. Agentic tooling is not optional in AWE. It's what makes the model work. The 3-day Build Cycle assumes agent-assisted execution. BSAs use agents for meeting prep, customer intel, ICE Spec drafting, and follow-up tracking. TSAs use agents for code generation, test writing, debugging, and documentation.
People Experience (COO) is responsible for making sure every team member has the right tools, access, and training.
Q: What if I'm not comfortable with AI tools yet?¶
That's what training and People Experience are for. You won't be thrown in cold. But the expectation is that you develop these skills. The AWE model doesn't work without agentic augmentation — the workload assumptions (BSAs managing 8-12 customers, TSAs shipping in 3-day cycles) depend on it.
Q: Does this mean AI is doing my job?¶
No. Agents handle information processing: pulling data, generating boilerplate, drafting documents, running tests, surfacing context. You handle judgment: relationship building, solution design, architecture decisions, trade-off evaluation, negotiation, reading the room. The things humans are good at don't get automated. The things humans are slow at do.
Q: What specific tools will I be using?¶
The specific tooling stack will be communicated by People Experience. The AWE framework is tool-agnostic by design — it describes what agents do for you, not which specific products you'll use.
Q: Will AI have access to customer data?¶
AI tooling operates within the same data access and security boundaries as the people using it. Security & Infrastructure (COO) sets the policies. Your agent can see what you can see — nothing more.
4. The New Org Structure¶
Q: Who is on the WLT?¶
| Role | Responsibility |
|---|---|
| CEO | Org World Model + Org Operating Model |
| COO | Finance, People Experience, Security & Infrastructure |
| VP of People Success (Diana) | People Success — employee happiness, health, motivation |
| Head of Services and PayOps (Cristin) | Worksuite Services — PayOps, CompOps, Help Desk |
| CSA | SA Group Leader — BSA + TSA teams, tiebreaker |
Q: What does "People First" mean in practice if there are no managers?¶
People First is preserved through two dedicated functions: - People Success (VP of People Success, Diana): Owns employee wellbeing, engagement, motivation, and satisfaction. Uses T-SEMS to measure and act on employee health. Reports directly to CEO. - People Experience (COO): Ensures everyone has the right tools, access, AI agents, processes, and communication methods.
T-SEMS results flow to the CEO first. This is intentional — it keeps people health as a direct executive concern, not something filtered through middle management.
Q: What's the difference between Worksuite Services and what BSAs do?¶
Worksuite Services (Head of Services and PayOps (Cristin)) handles operational functions: Payment Operations, Compliance Operations, and Help Desk. These are ongoing operational services.
BSAs handle solution delivery: designing and delivering specific solutions for customer needs. If a customer needs a new integration built, that's a BSA + TSA. If a customer's payment didn't process, that's Help Desk.
Worksuite Services is NOT professional services. It's NOT a team you hand implementations off to.
Q: Why did we eliminate the product function?¶
Product management was an information-routing function: gather requirements from customers, prioritize, translate for engineering, manage a roadmap. In AWE: - BSAs gather requirements directly from customers - BSAs prioritize using ICE (not a product team's roadmap) - BSAs work directly with TSAs (no translation layer) - TSAs make platform investment decisions through PSBs - Agentic tooling handles the information processing product managers used to do manually
The work product managers did still gets done. It's just distributed to the people closest to the work instead of centralized in a separate function.
5. Frameworks & Terminology¶
Q: What is ICE?¶
Intent, Context, Evaluation. The universal framework for designing solutions. - Intent: What outcome are we trying to achieve? (Not "build feature X" but "enable the customer to do Y.") - Context: What do we know? History, constraints, politics, what's been tried. - Evaluation: How do we measure success? Specific, testable criteria.
ICE replaces PRDs. Both BSAs and TSAs use it.
Q: What is DPEV?¶
Discuss, Plan, Execute, Verify. The build lifecycle for every BC. - Discuss: Align on what and why (30 min to 2 hrs) - Plan: Define approach, scope, acceptance criteria (1-4 hrs) - Execute: Build with agentic tooling (1-2.5 days) - Verify: Test, validate, ship to production (2-4 hrs)
Q: What is D3?¶
Discuss, Debate, Decide. The peer decision-making framework. Used when ICs disagree on priorities, approach, or resource allocation. If D3 doesn't reach consensus, the CSA breaks the tie.
Q: What is T-SEMS?¶
Team SEMS. The employee health measurement framework. Measures Wellbeing, Engagement, Motivation, and Satisfaction. Administered by People Success (VP of People Success). Results go to the CEO first.
Q: What's an STO?¶
Single Threaded Owner. The IC who owns a specific work product and has decision authority and accountability for it. BSAs are STO on CSBs. TSAs are STO on TSBs. STO is not a title — it rotates with work products.
Q: What's the difference between a CSB, TSB, BC, and PSB?¶
| Work Product | What It Is | Who Owns It | Time Cap |
|---|---|---|---|
| CAP | Strategic plan for a customer relationship | BSA | Ongoing |
| CSB | A discrete solution for a customer need | BSA (STO) | Varies |
| TSB | A technical build that feeds into a CSB | TSA (STO) | 3 weeks max |
| BC | The atomic unit of shippable work | TSA | 3 days max |
| PSB | Platform investment (new module or major extension) | TSA(s) | Varies (but comprised of capped TSBs/BCs) |
6. Concerns & Fears¶
Q: This sounds like we're just doing more with fewer people.¶
The goal is not "do more with less effort." The goal is to go deeper and move faster. BSAs go deeper with each customer because agents handle prep, intel, and documentation. TSAs ship faster because agents handle boilerplate, tests, and context retrieval. The workload shifts from low-judgment tasks (data gathering, report writing, status updating) to high-judgment tasks (relationship building, solution design, architecture decisions).
Q: What if a 3-day Build Cycle isn't realistic for complex work?¶
You break complex work into multiple 3-day BCs. A TSB can contain up to ~7 BCs across 3 weeks. Each BC ships independently. The discipline of scoping to 3 days is the point — it forces you to decompose complexity into shippable pieces. If it genuinely can't be broken down, that's a conversation with the CSA, but it should be rare.
Q: What if I fail? There's no manager to shield me.¶
You're an IC with ownership. That means both credit and accountability. But AWE isn't sink-or-swim: - People Success monitors employee health through T-SEMS and intervenes early - D3 gives you a structured way to resolve conflicts - The BSA-TSA loop means you always have a partner, never working in isolation - 3-day BCs mean failures are small and recoverable — you lose 3 days, not 3 months
The goal is fast failure and fast learning, not zero failure.
Q: This is a lot of new terminology. How do I remember all of this?¶
The AWE wiki has dedicated handbooks for BSAs and TSAs, plus framework guides for DPEV, ICE, D3, and T-SEMS. You don't need to memorize everything on day one. The core concepts are: 1. ICE for framing problems 2. DPEV for building solutions 3. D3 for resolving disagreements 4. 3-day BCs for shipping
Start there. The rest fills in as you work.
Q: What if I don't want to be an IC? I liked managing people.¶
AWE values people skills highly — they just aren't expressed through traditional management. The VP of People Success role exists specifically because people health matters. If managing and supporting people is your strength, People Success may be a fit. Some former managers also thrive as BSAs (the customer relationship skills transfer directly) or as CSA-track leaders who facilitate D3 and coordinate the SA team. Talk to People Success about where your skills map.
Q: How will you know if this is working?¶
Multiple signals: - Customer outcomes: Are solutions shipping faster? Are customers happier? - T-SEMS scores: Are employees healthy, engaged, motivated, and satisfied? - Build cycle velocity: Are BCs completing in 3 days? Are TSBs completing in 3 weeks? - PSB cadence: Are TSAs proactively investing in the platform? - D3 escalation rate: Are peers resolving disputes or constantly escalating?
If T-SEMS scores drop, we course-correct. People First isn't negotiable.
Q: When does this take effect?¶
Timeline will be communicated by leadership. This FAQ is part of the planning phase. You're seeing this before anything changes so you have time to absorb, ask questions, and prepare.
7. Day-to-Day Practical Questions¶
Q: Do I still have 1:1s?¶
Not in the traditional sense. There's no manager to have 1:1s with. People Success may conduct periodic check-ins as part of T-SEMS. BSA-TSA pairs will naturally have frequent touchpoints through the DPEV cycle. If you need support, People Success (Diana) is your first call.
Q: How do I get help if I'm stuck?¶
- Technical: Ask another TSA. There's no hierarchy gatekeeping knowledge.
- Customer: Ask another BSA or bring the question to a BSA peer group session.
- Process: People Experience (COO) handles process questions.
- Personal: People Success (VP of People Success, Diana).
- Resource conflict: D3 first, then CSA if needed.
Q: How do I request PTO?¶
People Success handles PTO policy and approvals. The process will be communicated separately, but the principle is Flexibility — one of the three Core Principles.
Q: Are there still team meetings?¶
No recurring status meetings. No standups. No sprint retros. Specific coordination meetings (BSA-TSA Discuss sessions, D3 sessions, PSB planning) happen as needed. They're purpose-driven, not calendar-driven.
Q: How do I know what other teams are working on?¶
Agentic tooling surfaces this. Active CSBs, TSBs, and BCs are visible. Your agents can pull the status of any work product. The goal is radical transparency without meetings — information is always available; you just don't have to sit through a presentation to get it.
Document maintained by Red. Living FAQ — will be updated as new questions surface during rollout.