1 person's deep work might mean an entire department is stuck twiddling their thumbs because they're blocked and can't reach the person absorbed in "deep work".
wfh can be great for individual productivity, but it can also seriously hamper team productivity.
That seems to indicate a catastrophically low bus factor--people get sick, take vacations, sleep, quit, etc. If you’re blocked on an IC doing anything other than finishing their task you've got a bigger problem than them going out of pocket for a day, fix the real problem.
(If they're a manager/decisionmaker of some sort then they better learn how to multitask online, which is like a 30 year old skill requirement at this point)
I have been in some type of team lead/architect position for almost 10 years now. 4+ years at product companies and 5+ in consulting companies. At any given time, I might have needed a decision to be made by my CxO, the client or another team.
On the other hand I might be preparing for a meeting, in a meeting, on a plane, at a customer’s site etc. On the opposite end, there is always a list of things I need to get done. I put that item as “blocked” and move on to my next item. If it is a downstream dependency as a developer, I mock it out and keep going.
If you are dependent on one person to answer a question, what happens when they go on vacation or if they are otherwise unavailable? I make it a point to not be a single point of failure.
Also, I keep my calendar up to date, including time I need to do “deep work”, when I’m traveling for business, of course meetings automatically show up. Anyone is free to put a meeting on my calendar if they need to interact with me synchronously.