“Center of Excellence” is the dominant phrase for platform stewardship. It’s also the wrong phrase. The CoEs that scale don’t centralize — they federate. The phrase’s implication of central control causes the strategy errors we keep seeing.
“Center” implies a hub-and-spoke model. Standards flow out from the centre. Demand flows in. The centre approves. The centre is excellent; the spokes consume.
Federation. The centre owns standards-as-code. Embedded squads deliver autonomously within those standards. Excellence is distributed. The centre is small. The squads are abundant.
“Platform Engineering Federation.” “Distributed Excellence Network.” Even just “Platform Team + Squads.” Anything that conveys the federated reality rather than the centralized fantasy.
Words shape strategy. The phrasing matters.
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