---
title: "What a CDO actually feels like"
url: https://ott.earth/lego-envelope/
author: "Pavel Ott"
source: https://ott.earth/
license: CC BY 4.0
---

# What a CDO actually feels like

> Lego bricks in shape, envelopes in responsibility — two complementary analogies that make CDOs concrete.


The easiest way to understand CDOs is through two complementary analogies. One describes their **shape**, the other describes their **responsibility**.

<div class="duo">
  <div class="card analogy">
<img class="analogy-banner" src="/img/analogy-lego.png" alt="One yellow Lego brick beside a pile of colourful Lego bricks" />
    <h3>Think of CDOs like Lego bricks</h3>
    <p>Our job isn't to design thousands of custom bricks. Every new brick costs time to design, maintain, and support.</p>
    <p>The goal is to design <strong>just enough</strong> bricks, each with a clear purpose, that we can build any shape the organisation needs.</p>
    <p>New buildings, new initiatives, new systems — same bricks. Same building blocks, different outcomes.</p>
    <p><strong>We optimise for reuse, not for every project to invent its own bricks.</strong></p>
  </div>
  <div class="card analogy">
<img class="analogy-banner" src="/img/analogy-envelope.png" alt="One open envelope beside a pile of envelopes" />
    <h3>Each CDO is also like an envelope</h3>
    <p>The envelope defines what belongs inside. It can contain:</p>
    <ul>
      <li>Information</li>
      <li>Sub-envelopes</li>
    </ul>
    <p>What it <em>can't</em> contain is someone else's content copied for convenience.</p>
    <p><strong>If you don't define the envelope, every system invents its own.</strong></p>
  </div>
</div>

<div class="endorse-tag">Flexible by design. Clear by default.</div>

**Putting both analogies together:** CDOs are Lego bricks in shape — a small, shared set of components from which many different things can be built. They are envelopes in responsibility — each one knows exactly what belongs inside it and who owns it. That is how an organisation gets flexibility without chaos.