I have posited the Objective Model as a way a company can govern projects while at the same time leaving teams autonomous and allowing them to innovate. The idea is simply to pass a business objective to a cross-functional team to fulfill, without the intermediate step of developing “requirements.” Because with today’s techniques the team can immediately begin delivering capabilities that help accomplish the goal, their work can be overseen simply by measuring goal accomplishment against cost, and since investments can be staged (metered), risk is very low.
— War and Peace and IT: Glossary, Mark Schwartz