Look for
Differentiated responsibilities
Are different components expected to solve different parts of the larger problem?
One way alignment happens
Roles and specialization
Can alignment be produced by giving different parts different jobs?
Many systems become competent by dividing activity among components whose contributions are different but mutually dependent.
Try seeing it
Coordination does not require interchangeable parts.
A soccer team assigns different positions. A firm divides labor among occupations. A conversation can depend on asymmetric question and answer roles.
Specialization reduces the need for every component to do everything while increasing the importance of how the differentiated contributions fit together.
Look for
Mutual dependence
Does one role only make sense because other roles are being performed elsewhere in the system?
Watch out for
Gaps and collisions
Poor role design can leave necessary work undone, duplicate effort, or create incompatible local objectives.
The deeper pattern
Specialization turns difference into structure.
Mere heterogeneity is not yet alignment. The differences have to be related so that local activities jointly preserve or construct something at a larger scale.
Roles are one way of making those relationships stable and legible.
A useful perturbation
Remove the differentiation of roles. Can the system still perform the same function?
If not, organized difference was doing part of the alignment work.