I don't know about you, but I'm kind of fed up with all of the
hair splitting over words that's dominating our practice
and our industry on social media. That's this week on
the Badass Agile Podcast.
Greetings, team. Welcome to the Badass Agile Podcast. I'm
your host, Chris Williams.
Hello, friend. Thank you for being here. Happy to see you. Our
industry's in crisis. There's no denying it's getting harder and harder to
find and keep opportunities if you're an agile coach or scrum
master. So of course, we're taking to the streets trying to figure out
what went wrong and what's going to make things better. And
no disrespect to all of the fine people who are trying to help solve this
problem, who refuse to quit, never give up, and keep reaching
for a better tomorrow, but I think we're going about it the wrong
way. Before we get into it, let's take a moment to remember why we're
here. To create an elite tribe of leaders who truly serve their
clients and communities by doing what matters and what works,
relentlessly chasing value and excellence like a badass.
There's so many resources out there about what we need to do to be
agile, but we're focused on who we need to become in order
to lead teams. So let's hammer down those fundamentals to
create a truly unique and powerful force in this industry.
Remember, if you like this episode, share it with your friends.
Okay. Remember that 70s movie called Caddyshack?
Ted Knight, the guy who played Judge Smales, had a great line where
he stumbles across some people just sitting around at the country club, and he looks
at him and says, don't you people have homes? That's the way I feel about
people who are stirring up this kind of sentiment on social media,
arguing over using the wrong words. Here's a
specific case. I saw some people talking about the word
accountability and how it was responsible for all of the
problems that we're having in agile, because presumably the word
accountability makes people feel bad. I've heard this before.
I've heard the word promises, the words like commitment,
even the word deadlines, come under fire because of the way it
makes people feel about their work. I even saw one person comment,
three simple words, accountability is violence.
So I think that's super hyperbolic, and I think you're wasting time
sitting around the country club arguing about things that ultimately
don't matter. I've been around a bit. I've heard all kinds
of words used to convey terrible Emotions, hatred,
intolerance. And so in many cases over history,
we've changed the words that we use to refer to specific
activities or groups of people, or even physical or
mental conditions. The word takes on a negative, hurtful
charge. So we ban the word. But of course what happens next is
whatever word we use to replace it with now becomes
the dangerous and violent word. Why? Because it's never the
word, it's the sentiment behind the word, which of course just
travels from phrase to phrase over trends and
over time. If you don't change the root cause of the problem,
then you can change the words all you want. Nothing will actually get
any better. Now, people who don't like the word accountability
probably have one of two issues. Either you've been
traumatized by the word because someone used it as a weapon in the
past, well, that's bad leadership and that's on them. So
we could change the word to responsibility, commitment, or even just doing
your job. Because you know what doesn't go away? The
actual accountability. I've said this a million times, usually around the
topic of estimation. But if you bring your car into a mechanic
because it's making a funny rattling noise or it's bumping, or it's doing something weird,
it accelerates jerky, whatever, your mechanic will say, okay, we'll have
a look and we'll let you know. Well, to the curious, especially the budget
minded, the next thing out of your mouth is going to be, what do you
think it could be? Ever seen anything like this before? And what do you think
ballpark the range is for fixing it? Imagine if your
mechanic turned to you and said, I don't know, I'll let you know when it's
done. To which you reply, of course, well, okay, well when will that be?
When's it going to be done? And your mechanic replied, once again, I don't know,
I'll let you know once it's finished. That's not acceptable. Most people
can't handle that kind of uncertainty in their finances, not
to mention the disruption to their transportation means and your
schedule and all the other impacts. Well, if you won't put up with it,
what makes you think that the people that you work for are going to be
any happier about not wanting to commit to deadlines,
cost, somehow, some way, give me a ballpark. Right? That's what you
usually plead. When they tell you they don't know till they get it up on
the lift. You say, yeah, yeah, yeah, but I mean, ballpark, what's the least it
could cost? What's the most it could cost. Those are fair questions in
business. Now, the second reason why you might not like the word accountability
is that you somehow don't believe that picking up that sticky with a
task on it and attaching your name to it and saying, I got this one,
this one's me, is actually making a promise to your team. A
promise that you're accountable, that you're putting your hand up for
fulfilling, no matter how trivial that may seem.
I don't care what you believe about words, much less what you like about words.
If you have a parenting job within your family, let's say you're
responsible. You're accountable for the health, the
safety, the growth of your child. That's just the deal.
If your job description has responsibilities written on it too,
you are accountable for those outcomes. If your
performance measurements have rewards tied to certain behaviors and
results, I'm sorry, but you're accountable for those
too. Maybe that's the problem. Everybody wants the
rewards, the accolades, the glory, but nobody wants
the accountability. Nobody wants eyes on them saying,
where is it? You promised, it's done yet.
I think this is one of the reasons why our practice is a shambles.
We're in bad shape. I'll say it again. It's taking 12 months to find a
new job to replace the old one that got downsized, outsourced,
or eliminated, oftentimes just to end up making a little
bit more than if you worked at Walmart. If you can't embrace
accountability as a matter of not only dignity, but maybe
duty, maybe honor, then how exactly are you going to lead
other people to be accountable for their stuff? Because one of
the big complaints I hear from agile coaches and scrum masters
is that my teams aren't doing the work. They're
not moving fast enough. They're not taking accountability for blockers
well, why on earth would you expect your customers or your
leadership team to take Agile seriously if you
won't, don't we often blame management leadership or the
executive layer for failing to support Agile properly?
So let's get this straight. You want them to be accountable for the
success of an Agile implementation, but you yourself don't like
the word accountability when it's pointed at you,
it feels like we're showing up as a bunch of whiners grieving over
words. We don't like what the words represent. That work is
hard. Work requires stretch. It
requires struggle. And if you expect others to
do their bit, you had better do your bit too.
And your bit probably isn't blogging about how sad.
These words make you feel. Muscle doesn't grow until
you tear it. That's not to say a job should be uncomfortable,
unlivable, intolerable. If you hate your job, leave
your job, or do something about it if you can. But to suggest
that what we really need here is to subtract certain words from the
Scrum guide, or from our daily practice or from our rituals is,
quite frankly, nonsense. You don't grow unless you
stretch, unless you have to reach. And one of the
ways that we stretch and reach and one of the ways, by the way,
how we will learn to estimate better, if that's a desire
of yours, is to try, is to put your name down
for a certain task, a certain job, a certain output or outcome.
If you don't know how long it's going to take saying, I don't know, I
think by Friday. But I'll tell you what, if it's not going to be Friday,
I'll let you know by Tuesday. This is how we learn to
do what Agile is supposed to help us get good at doing,
which is bringing some certainty and predictability into the
unknown and the never done before. That's its beauty,
that's its elegance, and that's where it really shines. We'll all agree
Agile is not to be used for things that we can do routinely. We
don't agile mop the floor, we don't agile clean the bathroom.
But we do use Agile in areas where we're trying to do something
that has never been done before. We don't know how long it's going to take.
We don't know what's required, we don't know what could go wrong. But until
we enter fearlessly and say, not knowing those things, I still
put my hand up as the person in charge of getting this piece
done. Therefore, my team can count on
me. I will do my part in carrying the load,
bearing the burden of moving the needle on this particular
initiative by doing my part. Doing my part is called
accountability. Imagine how we'd look occupying
the halls and spaces of a professional office setting,
protesting the word accountability as violence,
and using 2/3 of every second Friday to hold a fully
costumed Darth Empathy retrospective. As if those
kinds of behaviors and attitudes are going to help a
dying practice. So how about we put the social media
down and get back to work? I. I guess I sound like a little bit
of an old guy, but I am a little bit of an old guy. Work
is called work for a reason. If it were easy,
everyone would be doing it and we'd have no business demanding
premium paychecks to roll into the office every day and get
it done. I like the word accountability. I love the
word accountability because I think it's swelling with
honor. Accountability is a matter of pride.
It's what we choose to commit to. And commitment
is the foundation of delivery. You
can't evolve without commitment. You can't innovate without
commitment. And I think it's impossible to add
value and therefore to be valuable without
commitment and accountability. I've had people reach out to me
before to say, you know, can you stop using the word strength or stop using
the word accountability, or stop using the word done?
And the answer is no. Because I think accountability,
commitment, responsibility, duty is so core to
what we do as practitioners that to take the word out
removes all of the superpower from what we do.
And in 2026, that is not something that we need more of.
So what about you? What do you think? You can reach out at the coordinates
in the show notes below. Don't forget to check out my
offerings@learning.fusechamber.com you can find
me@bassassagile.com and let me know what you think of this
episode. I look forward to seeing you next time, my friend. I want to thank
you for being a listener, and until then, stay
badass.