> I often encounter engineering managers who make appeals to the business, as a way to sidestep their accountability to a direct internal customer.

I cant help but feel like this is not a fault of being “business focussed” but instead of misunderstanding what or who the business is. Business focussed (imo) is management speak for a focus on solving the right problem for the right customer within the constraints of that customer.

In the case you describe the customer is internal. There seems to be an implicit misconnect there though. Perhaps this is a example of a lack of information usually communicated through a sales process with a customer?

Similar to the issues that arise when you ask a friend for a favour and they do a bad job / ghost you / bail. Its hard to release them of the obligation they signed up for. There is little to no explicit skin in the game (money?). In a similar way the development team building for an internal customer have an unclear, poorly defined relationship with a convoluted accountability process.

Perhaps it can also be modelled in a game theoretic way? e.g:

Lets have 2 sets of players:
A. (c) Customer <-> (p) service provider
B. (c) Internal customer <-> (p) internal service provider

Each set of players plays a set of potentially unbounded games which represent projects. The moves available for each game are:
1. Continue working together
2. Stop working together

Each move has an associated reward and cost which has a simple numeric value but represents the aggregate of things both monetary and socially valuable / costly. This means that they are not of the same type though, so a single score for a move cant be produced just by subtracting the cost from the reward. (This probably needs modelling better).

Moves are represented in the form:
A.c.1 which means the customer in set A chooses to work together.

A.c.1 and A.p.1 has a cost of 2 and a reward of 3. Im assuming that working on the project only costs the time and money of the participants and rewards them with a product, money and a happy relationship (socially valuable).

A.c.1 and A.p.2 has a cost of 1 and a reward of 2. Im assuming it costs a little socially to the relationship, especially if previous games have been played (the project is running) and the reward is the time and money saved.

A.c.2 and A.p.1 is the same as above.

A.c.2 and A.p.2 has a cost of 0 and a reward of 2. Im assuming that both players agreeing to not work together is amicable and so not costing anything socially or monetarily.

B.c.1 and B.p.1 has a cost of 1 and a reward of 3. Im assuming that the cost is just time spent on the project and that the reward is a better relationship between the players, and job security of both players.

B.c.1 and B.p.2 has a cost of 3 and a reward of 1. Im assuming the cost is to the relationships and the job security of B.p and the reward is for time saved.

B.c.2 and B.p.1 is the same as above except there is extra cost to B.c

B.c.2 and B.p.2 has a cost of 2 and a reward of 1. Im assuming that the cost of deciding not to work together internally is a risk to both player’s job security and that the reward is time saved.

The goal is to maximise reward while minimising cost.

This is a pretty poor model I think but it goes some way to expressing my thoughts on issues with internal projects and potentially why using a third “arbiter of vision” e.g the business, to justify things in the project may be motivated.

I composed this on my phone on my hour and a half journey to work. I wish it were easier to compose meaningful responses to comments online. It likely puts other people pff even replying.