The business argument for team responsibility and common goal
Why team responsibility and common goal? Concrete example for tech and non-tech people.
Why team responsibility in Agile?
Entrepreneurship example
Let’s take the following scenario: I am an entrepreneur who decided to have its own website. I found out that having it done by a freelancer will take him 3 months. So, I decided to give it to few experts: one guy is great at all the server things, there is this lady great at making things look cool, I have a security expert for all the online payments and a content guy, who is better than me at explaining my business in words.
Each one of them tells me that they can complete my requirements in 1 month, so I will have everything ready in 30 days. That’s great, exactly within my budget!
The illusion of control
They start working on the assignment and after 1 week I have a call with them to check the progress. Everyone did a great job: I see some nice logos and pictures, the security part works – payments with PayPal can be made, some content in Word is ready, etc. I am happy with it! The second week, even more progress, I know exactly what everyone did.
During the next week, something starts to bother me, but I don’t know what. I meet a friend who is eager to see how my website looks like so far, but I have nothing to show him, except some great pictures, some Word content and some payments he can make. On the third week, I raise this topic with the experts and their answer is that no one is good at creating a great landing page, nor the navigation part. Menus and not their thing. Plus, I made a contract with them to do what they are good at. They thought that was clear. They suggest that I contact a specialist in this area.
Is control more important than business?
For me, that is out of the question. My budget does not allow it to me, nor do I have time to search and make a contract with such a person now. I also realize that, even if the content is a state of art in Word, it is completely useless for me until it is on my website. Same with the pictures and the payment part. After one month, everyone has completed their part, what they committed to, they declare the success of the projects. They don’t understand my frustration that I don’t really have a functional website!
Specialization makes sense: one cannot do everything, so s/he needs to choose an area of expertise and get better at that. Not a bad idea in general. Clear personal responsibility and accountability, everyone works on what s/he is good at, what probably they enjoy the most, you know exactly who is not doing her/his part. And yes, sometimes you do need to contact that specialist.
Team responsibility mind shift
Still, when it comes to accomplishing something bigger than what one person can do alone, it usually leads to this: everyone is successful on his part, but the overall result is a huge failure. This is not a surprise considering that our education system encouraged success on individual tasks, collaboration was not favored and in many times, was even penalized.
In order to avoid that, a mindset shift is needed. The goal is not that everyone does well their part, the goal is that the overall result is a success. In my example, having a functional website. Even though expertise is hugely important (more in this blog), the goal is not to use the expertise, but to create the most value for the users.
Risk mitigation
And here is where the common goal and team responsibility comes to play because it is almost impossible nowadays to anticipate the skills needed for accomplishing an end result that was not done before (as it is always the case in software development). Some anticipation of key skills is made and people are gathered on those skills. Still, their goal is not “to do what they are the best at”, but to do whatever it takes to accomplish common success. Because yes, it is possible to be super smart, hard-working and very good at what you do, and still deliver a big disappointment for the user.
This requires a new mindset: for management, to delegate the responsibility to the team, instead to a single person and for team members to embrace flexibility, willingness to step outside the comfort zone, to do tasks outside the established expertise, even outside of what we like doing the most, desire to learn new things, a good foundation of general knowledge, eagerness to work closely with other people and to be evaluated according to the team’s result and a deep attitude of service.
Service to those who will use what you are creating which becomes more important than doing what you are good at or doing what you enjoy the most.
About:
Roxana supports IT Executives to leverage the Agile mindset and the latest management research to achieve Strategic Business Agility. Her fully customized approach includes the right mix of Agile Management Training and Consulting, Executive Coaching, and Mentoring. Read more about the Agile Business Transformation services, focused on Agile Management, Transformational Leadership, and Startup Profitable Growth at MastersWhoCare: Uncovering better ways to lead and serve.
