Rota Fortunae

We know that a static organizational structure limits improvement and also becomes boring for some executives. While many outside the SADMF community may propose Value Stream Mapping to identify constraints, we know that the process is time-consuming and uses too many Post-Its. To resolve these we introduced the Rota Fortunae ceremony where we “spin the wheel”, restructure, and then see if we are delivering better. If we fail, then we convene a Tribunal to address it. The Rota Fortunae embodies the SADMF principle that organizational agility means being willing to change everything about how teams are structured without needing a reason to do so.

The Wheel

The Rota Fortunae is a physical wheel mounted in the Commodore’s office. The wheel is divided into segments, each representing a possible organizational restructuring action. Current segments include:

• Merge Teams A and C – Combine two teams regardless of their current domain expertise
• Split Team B – Divide a functioning team into two smaller teams with overlapping responsibilities
• New Management Layer – Insert an additional reporting level between existing roles
• Remove Management Layer – Eliminate a management tier, redistributing responsibilities upward
• Swap Feature Captains – Reassign Feature Captains to teams they have no prior experience with
• Create Center of Excellence – Establish a new cross-functional body with advisory authority and no delivery accountability
• Reorganize by Technology – Restructure teams around technology stacks instead of value streams, or vice versa depending on the current structure

The segments are updated annually by the Admiral’s Transformation Office based on which restructuring patterns have not been tried recently.

The Quarterly Spin

The Rota Fortunae ceremony takes place quarterly, typically on the first Monday following a completed convoy cycle. The Commodore spins the wheel in the presence of all Feature Captains and senior leadership. The result is binding. There is no re-spin, no appeal, and no exception process. The randomness is the point. Where Value Stream Mapping would require weeks of analysis, data collection, and stakeholder interviews to identify the optimal organizational change, the Rota Fortunae achieves the same outcome in approximately four seconds, delivering a restructuring decision with zero analysis overhead.

The Restructuring Implementation Period

Following the spin, a two-week Restructuring Implementation Period (RIP) begins. During the RIP, teams are reorganized according to the wheel’s directive. Reporting lines change, Slack channels are renamed, seating charts are updated, and new team names are established. Code Engineers may find themselves on entirely new teams with new Feature Captains working on unfamiliar codebases. The RIP is considered an administrative period and does not count against delivery metrics, which is the primary reason it is tolerated. Any velocity loss observed in the weeks following the RIP is attributed to individual performance rather than organizational disruption.

Organizational Memory

One notable characteristic of the Rota Fortunae is that previous organizational structures are never documented. When a restructuring occurs, the prior team composition, reporting lines, and domain assignments are not recorded. This is by design. Documenting previous structures would create the temptation to revert to a prior state, which would undermine the forward-looking nature of the ceremony. If a particular team structure was working well, the organization will naturally arrive at it again through future spins. The wheel provides, and the wheel takes away.

See Also

• Tribunal for the ceremony convened when restructuring fails to improve delivery
• Commodore for the role that spins the wheel
• Feature Captains for the roles most frequently reassigned by the wheel
• Convoy Ceremonies for the full ceremony lifecycle
• Metrics for how delivery is measured after restructuring