From making to directing and judging
In The Kite Method no roles disappear, but the centre of gravity shifts from making to directing and judging. Each role gets a Kite name, so the organisation can see the work itself has changed.
Roles are hats, not job titles. One person can wear several, and a hat can rotate. There are two layers: three core roles every team has from day one, and two roles that start as shared tasks and only become a separate role as the team or organisation grows.
Pilot
Writing Frames, steering agents, judging outcomes; coding hands-on in the Paired and Held zones
- Holds the line on
- Technical quality of their own work
Intent Owner
Quality of Kite Briefs and acceptance criteria; closer to the build than before. One per team.
- Holds the line on
- The why and the priority
Line Keeper
Guards zones, review load, Human Anchors and people’s growth. May rotate in a small team.
- Holds the line on
- Health of the team and the method
Tail Engineer
Designing verification: test harness, evals, quality gates in CI
- Holds the line on
- Whether “done” really means done
- Starts as
- A task that rotates among the Pilots (Tail rotation)
- Own role
- In a large Kite team
Frame Architect
Capturing architecture rules as boundaries agents can read; decides in the Held zone
- Holds the line on
- Irreversible technical choices
- Starts as
- A hat worn by the most experienced Pilot
- Own role
- With multiple teams, across the teams
Two rules at every team size
Never the only checker. Whoever built an item, or had it built, is never the only one who checks it in the Guided and Held zones. That makes two people the minimum.
Someone can carry the Held zone. Every team has at least one person experienced enough to decide in the Held zone. A team of only juniors does not work, however small.
Team size: start small
AI supplies the build capacity, so a team no longer needs to grow for volume; review capacity is the limit. A small team keeps that in balance almost by itself: everyone sees all the work, the Daily Demo stays short and there are few handoffs. Larger teams can work, but they ask more experience of the team.
Kite team
Every team starts here. Everyone is a Pilot; one Intent Owner and one Line Keeper, who may rotate. Tail and Frame are hats worn by Pilots.
Daily Demo, with the Line Review and Kite Retro combined.
Large Kite team
Only after the team reached Steady flight as a small team. Core roles plus a dedicated Tail Engineer; the Line Keeper does not rotate and has time for the role.
All three rhythms separately: Daily Demo, Line Review, Kite Retro.
Multiple teams
Each team has its own core roles. One Frame Architect guards the architecture rules across teams.
Each team runs its own loop and zones. Shared: one Tail (test infrastructure and evals) and a joint quarterly Kite Retro to keep zone routing consistent.
Grow by splitting, not by stretching
When there is more work, split into two small teams before you make one team bigger. A team only grows to 6–9 people when it is ready:
- The team has reached Steady flight as a small team: zones and the Kite Loop are running and the metrics are in place.
- The Tail is strong enough that the zone mix is shifting towards Free and Guided.
- There is an experienced Line Keeper with time for the role.
- Review load is manageable today; growing must not tip it over.
Signals a team is too big
The Daily Demo runs long, items wait for review, or review load rises while check time per item falls. Then split the team or strengthen the Tail; do not approve faster.