The Dual Mandate
When organizations face mission-critical technical challenges, the immediate pressure is to solve the problem. Ship the solution. Hit the deadline.
But there's a longer game: who maintains this solution next year? Who extends it when requirements evolve? Who debugs it at 2 AM when something breaks?
Effective embedded engagements address both mandates simultaneously. The problem gets solved AND your team gains the capability to own the solution.
Why Traditional Approaches Fall Short
The "Training Later" Trap
"We'll document everything and train the team after launch." This approach fails consistently because:
- Context is lost between implementation and training
- Documentation can't capture tacit knowledge
- Teams learn by doing, not by reading
The "Shadow Team" Problem
Having internal engineers "shadow" external implementers sounds reasonable but often results in:
- Passive observation rather than active learning
- The hard problems still get solved by externals
- No ownership transfer because ownership was never shared
The Embedded Approach to Capability Building
Collaborative Problem Solving
From day one, problems are solved together. Not in parallel. Together.
This means:
- **Joint Architecture Sessions**: Design decisions are made collaboratively, with reasoning explained and debated
- **Pair Programming**: Your engineers write production code from the start, with embedded engineers providing guidance
- **Shared Debugging**: When things break, the investigation happens as a team
Graduated Responsibility
As the engagement progresses, responsibility shifts:
Week 1-2: Embedded engineers lead, internal team observes and questions
Week 3-4: Shared leadership, decisions made collaboratively
Week 5-8: Internal team leads, embedded engineers advise and validate
Week 9-12: Internal team owns, embedded engineers available for consultation
Knowledge Capture in Context
Documentation happens alongside implementation:
- Architecture Decision Records (ADRs) capture the "why" behind choices
- Runbooks are written during the first production deployments
- Troubleshooting guides emerge from real debugging sessions
Measuring Capability Transfer
How do you know capability has actually transferred?
Behavioral Indicators
- Team members confidently explain architectural decisions to others
- New feature requests get estimated and scoped without external help
- Production incidents get resolved by internal team
- Code reviews happen without external participation
Validation Activities
- **Knowledge Assessments**: Can team members explain key concepts and decisions?
- **Solo Implementation**: Can team members implement related features independently?
- **Incident Simulation**: Can the team handle realistic production scenarios?
The Long-Term Payoff
Organizations that prioritize capability building alongside problem solving gain:
Reduced Dependency: No need to re-engage externals for every evolution
Faster Iteration: Internal teams can move quickly without coordination overhead
Deeper Ownership: Teams who built solutions care more about their success
Compounding Returns: Each capability gained makes the next challenge easier
Making It Work
Capability building requires intentional investment:
1. Allocate Time: Budget for learning activities alongside delivery work
2. Staff Appropriately: Your best engineers should be involved, not just available
3. Expect Slowdown: Early phases move slower than pure implementation—this is investment, not inefficiency
4. Celebrate Transfer: Recognize milestones where internal team takes ownership
The goal isn't just a working solution. It's an organization with new capabilities it didn't have before.
