#224 - Move Fast, Break Silos: Leadership for Interdisciplinary Teams - Klaus Breyer

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Jul 14, 2025

Klaus Breyer, an experienced B2B SaaS CPTO, shares insights on transforming the software development landscape. He argues that traditional manufacturing mindsets hinder innovation and proposes a design-centric approach. Discover how Agile practices often lead to micromanagement and silos. Breyer emphasizes empowering small, dynamic teams to solve real problems rather than just following orders. He also discusses the crucial balance between optimism and pessimism in leadership, advocating for enhanced collaboration and communication among interdisciplinary teams.

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ANECDOTE

Klaus Breyer's Career Journey

Klaus Breyer shared career turning points from co-founding a digital agency to founding a startup and becoming a CPTO.
His journey illustrates evolving roles blending product and technology leadership with strategic business responsibility.

INSIGHT

Software Development Is Design

Treating software development like manufacturing causes inefficiencies and silos.
Software is a design process requiring creative decisions, unlike replicable factory assembly lines.

ADVICE

Prioritize Early Trade-Offs

Avoid mixing urgent requests with planned work to enable true team commitment.
Prioritize trade-offs early with engineers at a higher level, not only at deadline crunches.

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Is your software development process stuck on a conveyor belt? Discover how to break free from outdated manufacturing mindsets and build truly high-performing, agile teams that “Move Fast and Break Silos.”

In this episode, experienced CPTO, Klaus Breyer, introduces a revolutionary approach to software development. He explains why treating software engineering like a factory assembly line leads to inefficiency, micromanagement, and disempowered teams. Learn how to slice work effectively—from objectives down to delivery—and align small, empowered teams to solve real customer problems and ship value faster.

Key topics discussed:

Why software development is a design process instead of a manufacturing process
How Agile and Scrum has become micromanagement tools
Why ticketing systems can create communication silos
How to slice work into objectives, problems, solutions, and delivery
Giving teams problems to solve, not just solutions to build
The concept of empowered teams that own their outcomes
Why small, dynamic groups of 2-3 people work best
Aligning your teams’ work with company goals and business objectives

Timestamps:

(00:00) Trailer & Intro
(02:10) Career Turning Points
(05:26) Critical Key Skills as CPTO
(07:40) Juggling Between Being Optimistic vs Pessimistic
(09:15) Move Fast and Break Silos
(13:08) The Difference Between Manufacturing and Software Development
(16:51) The Problems with the Status Quo of Software Development Practices
(23:50) Key Practice 1: Slicing Work
(25:51) Slicing Objectives
(28:30) Slicing Problems
(33:25) Slicing Solutions
(38:03) Slicing Delivery
(41:09) Key Practice 2: Aligning Teams
(43:21) The Effective Teams Alignment Practices
(48:10) Working in Small Teams at a Time
(51:07) Alignment with the Value Streams
(53:15) Mapping the Sliced Work to the Organization
(56:41) The Importance of Reporting Structure in the Large Organization
(58:52) 3 Tech Lead Wisdom

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Klaus Breyer’s Bio
Klaus Breyer is an experienced B2B SaaS CPTO who specializes in bridging the gap between technical delivery and agile product strategy, driven by a passion for breaking down silos. His career includes founding and leading the startups Buddybrand (a digital agency) and BuzzBird (a B2B marketplace), as well as building corporate startups and business units for major companies like Voith and edding in the IoT and B2B SaaS sectors.

Based in Berlin, he has extensive experience working with diverse and primarily remote teams. In addition to his leadership roles, he sometimes invests in and advises leadership teams on building effective interdisciplinary teams themselves. He is also a speaker, blogger, and book author who champions the philosophy of “Move Fast And Break Silos!”

Follow Klaus:

LinkedIn – linkedin.com/in/klaus-breyer
Twitter – twitter.com/klausbreyer
Website – v01.io
Email – kb@v01.io

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