How I stopped being the default person

Published on: April 17, 2025, by: João Alves

A few years ago, our Agile Coaches moved from working inside teams to more of a consulting role across squads. That left a gap. Suddenly, someone had to run sprint planning, retros, and other ceremonies.

At first, I picked them up. Then I got tired of doing all of it.

So we tried something else. For retros, we rotated who facilitated each time. For sprint planning, we'd sometimes just randomize it on the spot. It kinda worked. But the randomization wasn't fair. Some people got picked too often. Others got skipped for weeks. There was no history, no visibility, no reminders.

It felt messy.

Eventually, I moved into a Head of Engineering role. Now I don't sit in most team meetings. But I still see the same problem: repetitive team tasks need to happen, and someone has to own them each time.

Things like:

• Writing the monthly engineering newsletter
• Being the backup reviewer for new hires
• Running incident review meetings
• Posting the Friday wins message (e.g., "Bricks of Love")

These are all important. And I don't want to be the bottleneck. Especially if I'm out on vacation.

So I started thinking more seriously about rotations. Not just as a workaround, but as a system.

A good rotation does three things:

• Makes responsibilities clear
• Spreads the work evenly
• Keeps going without someone having to manage it manually

I didn't want to rely on spreadsheets or memory. I wanted something dead simple. You add the task, pick the people, and it just keeps going.

That's what led to using (and then building on top of) a lightweight tool for recurring responsibilities. It helps me involve more of the team, avoid single points of failure, and step back from the stuff I shouldn't be doing every time.

Now, when someone asks "Who's up next for X?" I actually know.

And it's not me.