Friday, December 18, 2009

Accountability and Scrum

So this blog post is all about the core question of who is accountable for the team's execution of its sprint commitment.

We all know that "product owners" are the single wringable neck for the backlog. He/She makes the final call regarding the prioritization of the work for the team. The Scrum Master is responsible for making sure the team is following Agile\Scrum best practices especially at daily scrum, sprint review, and sprint retrospective.

This core question of execution responsibility is especially complicated because:
  • Teams are often cross functional (developers, QA, UX, etc.) and each individual has their own functional manager. You can't make the functional managers responsible for the team's performance since there are likely several of them.
  • I struggle with suggesting that the scrum master be responsible for the teams commitment as he/she may not have the authority in the organizational strcuture.
So now that we have discussed the question, let's discuss a possible solution. My suggestion is simple:
  • Make everyone on the team except the Product Owner report into a single manager. That manager is responsible for the performance of all the team members. Since the performance of the individuals of the team are directly tied to the body of work the team commits to and the execution of that work, he/she is responsible for the team's execution.
What are your thoughts...let me know who you think is responsible for the team's execution...

6 comments:

  1. I've done SCRUM twice, once in management and once as a developer. I've worked in XP and other Agile environments. In my opinion, this question indicates a lack of understanding in what SCRUM is and why it was created. The fundamental concept of SCRUM is that it moves accountability from the Product Owner, project manager, and management to the individual contributors. This is why it works in some cases.

    Considering a management solution to an accountability problem in SCRUM is like trying to fix a flat tire with a horseshoe.

    Consider reading the white paper found online "The Agile Manifesto" as well as Ken Schwaber and Mike Beedle's "Agile Software Development with SCRUM".

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  2. You have answered my question! The individual contributors are held accountable for not meeting the team's commitment.

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  3. I agree that the team is accountable. It's definately a new way of thinking that makes certain people uncomfortable, especially top management. However, the goal of Scrum is a team concept where no one 'higher up' is dictating decisions.

    We are using a cross-functional Scrum team here, and every team member pretty much is following this concept and enjoys it.

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  4. So the challenge is how do you how the team accountable. There is this strange conflict between team accountability and individual responsibility. If I am a member of a team with a poor performer, should that be reflected in my individual performance review? Sometimes when everyone is accountable, no one is accountable??

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  5. I can only reply with a comment pertaining to the teams I am working with currently, "peer pressure". A poor performer in a accountable environment will be exposed very quickly to management and can no longer hide. Small companies expose this quickly, larger companies that I have been a part of let people "hang in the shadows" for years. We have all heard the term "a bad apple spoils the bushle", and have experienced this within project teams I have managed. In a correctly run SCRUM team the lower performer will raise their level of work to make the team successful. In some allotment of time he/she doesn't it is obvious to all and other actions need to be taken. I ultimately feel everyone comes to work to do a good job, SCRUM/Agile allow individuals to stand out as well as teams.

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  6. Greg, great point! I agree and have seen this happen. So there are times when "action needs to be taken". Who takes that action? Is that person accountable to make sure that the individuals on the team are performing.

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