Agile Retrospectives

10.2 Share Responsibility for Making Changes

When one person consistently grabs responsibility for action items, three problems emerge:

• Your team may come to look upon one team member as a heroic rescuer. The rescuer may rely on the heroic role for emotional reasons—to the detriment of the team. Whether the team relies on a rescuer or a rescuer seeks the role, the dynamic kills collaboration and shared ownership.

• When a formal or informal leader consistently takes responsibility (except for system problems outside the team), that person teaches the team to be helpless victims. Collaborating to make improvements strengthens the team. Taking away that responsibility cripples them.

• When a team consistently assigns responsibility for problem resolution to a subgroup within the team, it creates a perception that the subgroup is the source of all problems. Scapegoating breaks the team. Share responsibility, and rotate change leadership.