What the British Army can teach tech teams about speaking up
You notice something wrong in a plan. It might be a confusing instruction that needs rewriting. It might be a decision resting on incomplete evidence. Or it might be a step that needs to stop before it causes a problem.
Those situations need different responses. Finding the words can be harder when the person who approved the plan is more senior than you.
The British Army’s challenge spectrum offers a useful starting point for thinking about that difference. Here is how I would adapt it for a tech team, with clear ways to give feedback, question a decision and request a pause when new information changes the situation.
What the challenge spectrum shows
The British Army’s 2023 Followership Doctrine Note describes valued feedback, responsible challenge and intelligent disobedience. Its diagram shows increasing perceived impact on the challenger and moral courage required. It doesn’t rank the severity of the issue or prescribe an escalation sequence.
The challenge spectrum
feedback
challenge
disobedience
Perceived impact on the challenger and moral courage required
The note uses intelligent disobedience for exceptional circumstances involving a direct instruction and changed information or a moral dilemma. That has a specific military context.
For a tech workplace, I would translate the practical discussion into feedback, an explicit decision challenge, and an urgent pause or escalation within the team’s authority and procedures. These are my adaptations, not equivalent military definitions or permission to bypass controls.
One migration, three different concerns
For example, a software company is moving customer document files to a new storage service. The release plan includes copying files, checking the new service and later removing the old copies.
Consider three different concerns around that work: the handover guide uses an outdated label; the proposed checks only cover recently uploaded files; and, just before cleanup, a reconciliation report shows that some older files are missing from the new service.
The shared aim is to keep customer documents available. The right response depends on what is known, what could happen next, how soon it could happen and who can make the decision. A small documentation improvement and an imminent destructive action should not wait in the same queue.
How to put it into practice
Feedback: make the work clearer
Purpose: Offer a specific improvement someone can act on.
The handover guide says “old archive”, but the service dashboard calls the same location “original storage”. A colleague rehearsing the handover has to ask whether those are the same place.
Useful feedback connects the observation to its effect: “The guide and dashboard use different names for original storage. During the walkthrough, that made the next step unclear. Could we use the dashboard name and link to the exact screen?”
Name the document owner and agree when the change needs to be checked. If the guide is needed for the upcoming release, the timing belongs in the release plan.
Feedback can happen through a review comment or a conversation. You don’t need to make an ordinary wording improvement sound like a formal incident. If the ambiguity could lead someone to remove the wrong files imminently, however, it needs a more urgent response.
Responsible challenge: ask for a decision to be reconsidered
Purpose: Make the disputed assumption and requested decision explicit.
The migration plan proposes checking a sample of recent uploads before approving cleanup. You notice that older documents use a different storage layout and are not represented in that sample.
A clear challenge could be: “The proposed checks cover recent uploads. Older documents use another layout, so those results would not establish that the older files have moved successfully. Before approving cleanup, can the technical owner agree how that group will be verified?”
Separate what you know from what you suspect. You know which files the sample covers. You may not yet know whether any old files failed to copy. Link to the permitted evidence and identify the missing check.
Ask the release owner to record the decision, its owner and what evidence is required. A useful outcome might be additional verification and a revised cleanup decision. If the proposal is retained, ask for the reasoning and the route for revisiting it when new evidence arrives.
Pause and escalate: protect the work when the situation changes
Purpose: Get urgent attention before a consequential step proceeds.
Just before the cleanup step, the reconciliation report shows missing older files in the destination. Reconciliation means comparing the expected files with what arrived. Removing the old copies could now remove the only available copy of some documents.
State the consequence and request directly: “Please pause the cleanup. The report shows older files missing from the new service. I have not confirmed the full impact, but removing the originals could leave those documents unavailable. The technical owner needs to review this before deletion proceeds.”
If your role includes authority to hold the step, use the agreed control and notify the release owner. If it does not, urgently contact the person who can hold it using the team’s release or incident route. Make it clear that you need a response before the destructive action.
Keep the evidence and current state available in the appropriate work record. Do not improvise changes to permissions or destructive operations. Restart needs an explicit decision from the authorised owner, supported by the checks agreed for the missing files. A deadline alone doesn’t resolve the discrepancy.
Receiving a challenge: make the next step visible
Purpose: Turn a concern into an accountable response.
If you own the release, acknowledge what has been raised and clarify the immediate action. “Cleanup is on hold while the technical owner checks the missing file report” is a more useful response than “Thanks, we’ll look into it.”
Name who investigates, what work changes and when the decision will be revisited. Tell the person who raised the concern what happened afterwards. They shouldn’t have to keep asking whether anyone acted.
Where there is time to discuss, ask questions that improve the evidence. Where action is imminent, establish the hold and decision route before debating how elegantly the concern was phrased.
People can raise an important issue while uncertain, nervous or still learning the system. Make the process usable for them as well as for the confident colleague who knows everyone’s name.
A record you can use
What to try next
In your next planning or release conversation, agree who can pause a consequential step, how someone reaches them and what evidence is needed to resume. Put those answers somewhere the team can find them.
This is not a ladder you must climb one rung at a time. Match the response to the situation and use the urgent route when the timing requires it.
If you are raising the concern, make the observation, consequence and request clear. If you are receiving it, make the decision and follow-through equally clear.
Source: British Army, A British Army Followership Doctrine Note (2023), section 6, Figure 5 and paragraphs 46–49, printed pages 15–16. The tech examples and working tools are Coded Female adaptations.
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