# Stewardship rules

Source: https://segern.com/practice/stewardship-rules

One steward, clear decision rights, and delegation that remains legible.

1. **One steward:** every project or system has exactly one accountable owner
2. **Delegate execution:** research, drafts, implementation tasks, QA, and documentation can be delegated when they are legible and verifiable
3. **Protect system-defining decisions:** vision, non-goals, success criteria, scope cuts, and ship/no-ship remain steward decisions
4. **Record decisions:** decision, why, tradeoffs, reversibility, and follow-ups
5. **Simplify when coordination grows:** if delegation increases overhead, reduce surfaces instead of adding process