The Flight Levels Model: Connecting Strategy to Execution
The Flight Levels model visualizes work at three altitudes: strategic initiatives (Level 3), cross-team coordination (Level 2), and team execution (Level 1). It helps ensure high-level strategy translates to daily work.
The mental model
Think of your organization's work happening at three different altitudes. At the highest level, you have strategy. At the lowest, you have teams doing the work. The Flight Levels model is a thinking tool to visualize these levels and, most importantly, build the connections between them so that strategy effectively drives execution and operational realities inform strategy.
How it works
The model identifies three key perspectives, or "Flight Levels," within an organization. Flight Level 1 is the operational level where individual teams perform their work, like a development team working through its backlog. Flight Level 2 is the coordination level. It manages work that requires multiple teams to collaborate, visualizing dependencies and ensuring a smooth end-to-end flow for a product or value stream. Flight Level 3 is the strategic level. Here, leadership manages the portfolio of strategic initiatives, makes decisions on what to pursue, and links those goals to the work happening at the lower levels.
When to use it
Use Flight Levels when your company feels disconnected—when teams are busy but their work doesn't seem to align with strategic goals. It is particularly effective in large organizations where cross-team dependencies are the norm and no single team can deliver significant customer value on its own. It helps make strategic priorities actionable and visible throughout the organization.
When not to use it
Flight Levels is not a replacement for team-level agile practices like Scrum or Kanban; it's a layer on top. It is likely overkill for a small startup where strategy, coordination, and execution are handled by the same few people. Avoid it if you are looking for a prescriptive, off-the-shelf process to install without changing how people think and interact.
One canonical example
A bank wants to launch a new mobile check deposit feature. At Flight Level 3, this is identified as a key strategic initiative for the quarter. A Flight Level 2 system is then designed to coordinate the multiple teams involved: the iOS team, the Android team, the backend services team, and the security compliance team. This Level 2 board visualizes the entire workflow from start to finish. Each team at Flight Level 1 pulls their respective tasks from the Level 2 system into their own local backlogs, ensuring everyone is working on the same coordinated effort.
Interview question
What is the main benefit of connecting Flight Level 3 (strategic) with Flight Level 1 (operational) via Flight Level 2 (coordination)?
- a.To allow leadership to directly manage individual team backlogs and tasks.
- b.To replace the need for separate product management and project management roles.
- c.To translate strategic initiatives into actionable work and ensure alignment across teams.Correct
- d.To ensure all team-level agile practices are uniformly applied across the organization.
Why? this is the answer
The Flight Levels model's core purpose is to "build the connections between them so that strategy effectively drives execution" and make strategic priorities actionable. Option A is incorrect because the model emphasizes coordination and teams pulling work, not direct leadership micromanagement of individual tasks.
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