Engineering waits on sales. Sales waits on engineering.
The classic partnership deadlock: product will not build until a deal is real, sales will not mention the partner until there is a demo. Break it with a scoped job and one owner.
You have heard both sentences this month. Engineering: show me the deal. Sales: show me the demo. Each is rational in isolation. Together they are a deadlock. Nothing ships. The logo stays on the page. The partner goes quiet.
The way out is not a louder standup. It is a scoped job small enough to build without a signed enterprise, and a commercial sentence small enough to sell without a full product. One owner holds both. If product and sales each own a half, the loop never breaks. This is a common pattern in why tech partnerships fail.
Technical scope should be boring on purpose. Delegated access via OAuth 2.0. A documented API, ideally OpenAPI. A marketplace path if the partner has one, such as Stripe Apps. Boring is shippable. Custom protocol design is how the deadlock lasts another quarter.
The 60-second version
- Name the deadlock in the room. Both sides are waiting on a thing the other will not produce first.
- Pick a thin job that can ship without a signed seven-figure deal.
- Give one owner the build and the first seller sentence.
- Time-box it. If it is not demoable in weeks, the job is still too big.
What not to do
Do not start a joint steering committee. Do not wait for the partner's annual planning cycle. Do not build a platform to support every future pairing. Build the one job. Then see if anyone sells it.
Further reading
Breaking that deadlock is often the first week of a Partner Audit.
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