Rally a Coalition Quickly

The difference between a side project that ships and one that dies is a two-person minimum. Find one collaborator outside your team — a peer in product, an engineer on another squad, anyone who sees the same pain from a different angle.

Two names on a proposal change the politics. Now it is a cross-team initiative, not your pet project, and you have a built-in advocate in another room when budget conversations happen.

Keep the group small — two to four people maximum. Every extra body slows delivery and piles on coordination. Tight teams ship; sprawling committees draft.