Beyond the Intent Tree: John Cutler on the Hidden Realities of Operating Models

In a recent LinkedIn post, John Cutler explores the limitations of traditional “intent trees” in fully capturing how companies actually operate. While these hierarchical structures, mapping from long-term goals down to individual work items, are a common starting point for understanding organizational strategy, Cutler argues they obscure critical, real-world dynamics.

As John Cutler notes:

“Useful… but absolutely not the full picture”

Cutler emphasizes that the common practice of pointing to an intent tree within minutes of being asked how a company works, while seemingly informative, fails to reveal the nuances that dictate true operational effectiveness. He outlines several key areas that are often completely obscured by these simplified trees.

The Elusive Flow of Influence and Collaboration

One of the primary blind spots of intent trees, according to Cutler, is how influence actually flows within an organization. He points out that two companies can present identical intent trees, yet the underlying reality of strategic shaping can be vastly different.

In one company, teams might genuinely contribute to and shape the strategy, while in another, they might be relegated to merely executing directives handed down from above. This fundamental difference in how strategy is formed and disseminated is invisible in a standard intent tree.

Work, Priorities, and Dependencies: The Unseen Complexity

Cutler further argues that intent trees fail to represent the actual shape and size of work. A label like “key initiative” can mask wildly different collaboration patterns depending on the number of teams involved and the duration of the effort. A “key initiative” involving multiple tribes over several months is operationally distinct from one involving a single tribe for a shorter period, despite sharing the same hierarchical label.

Furthermore, the challenges of shared teams and competing priorities are often misrepresented. Cutler highlights that every department may claim its request is a top priority (P0), but the true cost of delay varies significantly. He states:

“Separate budgets create totally different outcomes than shared prioritization. A tree will never show this.”

The dependency structure is another critical element lost in translation. Two teams might be aligned on the same metric, but their operational realities can diverge dramatically. One team might be able to experiment weekly with minimal dependencies, while the other requires a massive, coordinated rollout involving multiple handoffs. To the intent tree, both scenarios appear identical.

Beyond Hierarchy: Team Types and Revenue Chains

Cutler also delves into the diverse nature of teams and their impact on work. He explains that while a “program” might look neat in a hierarchy, the reality encompasses various team types – from new offering development to margin optimization and sustaining teams. Each type has distinct working methods and produces different kinds of outcomes.

The complex interplay between business and technology functions is another area where intent trees fall short. A structure with multiple business segments, separate profit and loss statements, a shared R&D pool, and common product/platform teams presents a far more intricate operating challenge than a simplified functional tree suggests.

Moreover, the directness of the revenue chain is often obscured. Cutler points out that while a checkout-conversion team has a clear, direct line to revenue, a design-system team, though essential, connects to revenue through multiple intermediate steps. He writes:

“A tree won’t show the real path between work and value.”

The Real Operating Model Lies in Relationships and Context

Ultimately, Cutler concludes that intent graphs and trees, while helpful as a starting point, represent only a fraction of the complete picture. The true operational model, he argues, is embedded in the relationships between teams, the interfaces they use, the funding flows, the dependencies, the types of teams, and the frequent collisions of context that occur organically within a scaled organization.

As John Cutler puts it:

“Intent, funding, value chain, collaboration patterns sometimes overlap neatly. More often, they drift apart as companies scale. That’s the challenge”

These are the elements that traditional hierarchical trees fail to capture, and which are crucial for a genuine understanding of how work gets done and value is delivered. This complexity, he suggests, is what tools like Dotwork aim to model, moving beyond the limitations of basic custom fields and labels.