Ever had that discussion about who is responsible? You do not feel responsible, but someone else says you were made responsible? While you say that you were not? Or the moments where you think you transferred responsibility to someone and the other person denies that? Here is a checklist to determine who is really responsible.
Who made the last decision?
I mention this one as the first because for me it is one of the most important. In a project, for a story, for a process, it doesn’t matter what it is about. But who made the last decision? And I am not talking about answering the question “Do you agree?”. I am talking about a real decision. And for me, that is one where there were several options and all were presented in a similar way. The person or group of persons was completely free to choose any of the options. So, giving two options and mentioning only the benefit of one and the downsides of the other is not letting people make a decision. Neither is letting people know you are disappointed or pleased if they make a certain choice.
This one is very important for me because it shows ownership. You cannot have responsibility for a certain area if you do not own it. And you cannot own it if you are not free to decide on it. There are many people who will tell you you are responsible, but then make the decisions for you. And those persons are not only managers. Think also of product owners or scrum masters that already plan the sprint and think a “Yes, we agree” of the team is enough to make them responsible for the sprint backlog. Or a product owner that writes all the stories completely him/herself and then gets a “Yes, we can build that” from the team. And still believes the team is also responsible for building a good product.
How many hours did people spend on it?
One of the most famous example of this criterium is one or more managers coming together and determining who is going to work in which scrum team. They spend hours and hours talking about this. Then do a meeting of 1 hour with the affected people. And just the fact that you can ask questions during that hour should then be enough to make the new teams responsible for how good of a team they are. I think almost everyone has experienced it often doesn’t work like that.
But there are more examples. I mentioned earlier the product owner that wrote all the stories for a change him/herself. That also means that the product owner most likely spends the most time on the change. Hours and hours talking to people. And then refining it with the team for maybe 4 hours.
Yes, there is always a person that will spend the most hours on a topic. But that doesn’t mean that person should spend 90% of the time and still expect another person to be responsible. People feel able to be responsible when they were involved. Not when the topic was mostly discussed and decided out of their reach.
Who says “That’s not happening” the most?
To be clear: there are many variations of “That’s not happening”. It can remarks like “That is not important”, “Just trust me “, “That is not the right way” or “That is not needed”. A way to make a person responsible is to allow a person or group to do it as they want. If they have to do it too often in your way, they cannot be held responsible for it. It might be a way that works for you. But that doesn’t mean it will work for them. And also, if they are doing the work, they might see what works or not. In that case, they should be able to adjust. Even if that makes no sense to you.
Are mistakes corrected before or after finishing a task?
And the final one is the most difficult. You might have heard many times you should give people the opportunity to fail. What is not often mentioned is that you should also give people the opportunity to find their own mistakes.
The most common example is a manager that transfers responsibility from him to someone below him. But as soon as a mistake is made, he takes over again. Or at least starts asking questions and demanding corrections. But no, it is not only the manager. It also happens a lot within a scrum team, when there are senior and junior members. A junior person is coding and before he asked for an official review, the senior is already telling what is wrong. A junior tester is testing and before he is finished, a senior tester is already mentioning the bugs he missed.
If you are checked in that manner, you do not feel responsible for the quality. You do not feel trusted and given the opportunity to learn. So, you will not feel responsible, even if you officially are.
So, does this mean you cannot transfer responsibility?
Now, you can read this and think: “Is it that difficult to transfer or share responsibility?”. My answer would be: No, it is that easy to transfer or share responsibility. As long as transferring and sharing is better planned than you just saying “Now you are responsible”. Involve people you want to be responsible more in the preparation phase of a topic. Let them, for example, review documents written in this phase. Or have meetings with them, when important milestones are achieved.
Do not give them one option to agree upon, but offer choices. And you should mention of every option the benefit and downsides. You can do that by for example offering three options you think will work and giving them the final decisions.
Adjust to their way of working. So, if they want a diagram, give them a diagram. If they want a list alphabetically sorted, sort it alphabetically. If they want a meeting, give them a meeting. If they want it on paper, give it on paper.
And the last one: do not correct their mistakes after they are officially finished. Or if they ask you to.
To share or transfer responsibility, it is not needed to answer all 4 questions the right way. For sharing responsibility 1 question answered the right way can already be enough. For the transfer, you would need 2 or 3. But most of the questions can be answered differently by you deciding to do things differently. It’s as easy as that.