Managing dependencies across teams is a key engineering skill with its own vocabulary. Learn collocations like unblock teams and escalate blockers to communicate clearly in planning sessions and stand-ups.
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Program managers map out and ___ dependencies between teams in the planning phase.
Manage dependencies is the standard program management collocation. It means to actively oversee relationships between teams so that one team's delay doesn't silently block another. 'Track' is monitoring. 'Handle' is informal. 'Coordinate' is an activity within management. Manage dependencies is the comprehensive term.
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The platform team's first priority this sprint is to ___ the frontend team waiting on a shared API.
Unblock teams is the Agile collocation for removing an obstacle that is preventing another team from making progress. 'Help' and 'assist' are too general. 'Free' is informal. Unblock is the precise engineering term that appears in sprint updates, standups, and dependency boards.
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When a dependency cannot be resolved at the team level, engineers ___ blockers to their manager.
Escalate blockers is the fixed collocation for formally elevating unresolved impediments to a higher authority. 'Report' is for status updates. 'Raise' is informal British English but less specific. 'Notify about' is functional but not idiomatic. Escalate implies urgency and the need for decision-making power above team level.
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The release managers met weekly to ___ timelines across four dependent teams.
Coordinate timelines is the natural collocation for the active work of ensuring different teams' schedules are compatible. 'Align' is used for goals. 'Synchronize' is technical and usually refers to systems. 'Match' implies identical schedules. Coordinate timelines captures the negotiation and adjustment involved.
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Teams agreed to ___ ownership of the shared authentication library going forward.
Share ownership is the engineering collaboration collocation meaning that multiple teams take joint responsibility for a shared component. 'Split' implies dividing it into separate parts. 'Divide' has the same problem. 'Distribute' is for tasks or resources. Share ownership means collective responsibility without fragmentation.