Areas of Responsibility (AORs) for Cross-Functional Ownership
Publish a beyond-titles list of who's the DRI for what, so product and marketing always know who to go to.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 90%
To make product and marketing collaboration work, maintain an explicit list of Areas of Responsibility (AORs) — who is the directly responsible individual (DRI) for each thing, independent of job title. Pair it with out-loud cross-functional planning (Roadmap Week) and shared brief/review processes. The result is that anyone (especially product doing a launch) knows exactly who to go to, so nothing gets skipped.
Origin
The practices Emily Kramer observed working at Asana ('everything at Asana was in Asana'), including their AOR list and Roadmap Week; she now recommends them to the startups she advises.
Core principles
- 01Ownership is defined by what you're the DRI for, not by your title
- 02Clear ownership only helps if OTHER teams can see who the owner is — the list must be published
- 03As you hire, the list gets longer because responsibilities break down further
- 04Out-loud planning meetings surface the biggest decisions and let stakeholders weigh in early
- 05Respect for each function's distinct skill set is the cultural glue
How to run it
- 1
Write the AOR list beyond titles
List who is the DRI for each concrete thing — e.g. the PM owns onboarding tests, a specific marketer owns the copywriting for onboarding. Make it granular and separate from job titles.
Pro tip Owning something on the list can become a motivating milestone — a new hire is stoked to take an AOR over from the head of marketing.
- 2
Publish it so other teams can find owners
Make the list visible cross-functionally so product knows exactly who to approach for a launch or a launchable-feature decision, instead of skipping the step because they don't know who to ask.
Watch out Clear ownership is worthless if it lives only in one team's head — the failure mode is product skipping marketing because they can't find the owner.
- 3
Run Roadmap Week before each quarter
Hold cross-functional planning meetings where, e.g., the head of marketing can sit in on product roadmapping (sometimes as a silent participant) and a document captures the biggest decisions and open questions.
Pro tip These out-loud planning sessions may not scale forever, but they work extremely well early on for getting input and shared context.
- 4
Add clear brief and review processes
Layer on shared briefs (e.g. GACCS) and review processes so the right information moves at the right level at the right time, in both directions between product and marketing.
In the wild
With 15 marketers, a PM doing a launch previously didn't know who to go to and would just skip the step. The AOR list names the product marketer who owns that part of the product, so the PM knows exactly who to consult on whether a feature is launchable.
→ Cross-functional handoffs happen reliably instead of being dropped.
Though it sounds like a lot of process, once the AOR list exists it runs itself: a new hire is excited to put in their AORs and take ownership over an area (like managing editor) from the head of marketing.
→ Ownership becomes self-maintaining and even motivating as the team grows.
Common mistakes
Defining ownership by job title instead of DRI
Titles don't tell another team who actually owns a specific deliverable; without a beyond-titles DRI list, product can't find the right marketing owner and the collaboration breaks.
Keeping ownership implicit / unpublished
Having a clear owner internally but not surfacing it to other teams means people (especially product on launches) skip the handoff entirely because they don't know who to go to — working in silos and not looping in the relevant experts.
Is it for you?
Best for
Product and marketing leaders at a growing startup who want cross-functional launches and initiatives to stop falling through the cracks
Not ideal for
Very small teams of a few people where everyone already knows who owns what and a formal list is overhead
From the transcript
“we had a list of areas of responsibility which is just who owns what it's not your job title it's what are the things that…”
“it's really helpful to say like the product marketer owner for you know this part of the product is this and to just have this…”
“it's one thing to have (42:00) clear ownership but it's like quite another to for other teams to know like who that clear owner is”
“we did something called road map week which was before every quarter where we had sort of open meetings”
“once you actually make an aor's list it kind of like runs itself like someone new gets hired they're excited to put in their aors”
From the episode
How to build a powerful marketing machine
Emily Kramer (Asana, Carta, MKT1)