Agile Delivery Kit for Software Organisations

v1.0.18

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Overview

Accountabilities

Overview

  

3 minutes to read

Last Updated: Wed 25 Oct 2023 11:15

For your to be successful, there are a number of accountability’s that need to be fulfilled. These accountability’s can be shared, or fulfilled by a single person, but they must be distinct and be implemented.

Organisational Services

There are clear accountabilities that are required for the smooth functioning of Agility within [Company] for each of the groups:

  • SDK Steward – Is accountable for maintaining and supporting the [Company] Way, and for everyone’s understanding of it.

Practice Leadership Team(s)

The Practice Leadership Team(s) provide the actionable and empirical change leadership required to remove any organisational impediments to value delivery of the Delivery Team(s):

  • The Practice Leadership Team - is accountable for creating a valuable, useful organisational change every Sprint.
  • Practice Owner – Accountable for maximising the value of the changes and for effective Change Backlog management; e.g. Developing and explicitly communicating the Organisational Goal; Creating and clearly communicating Change Backlog items; Ordering Change Backlog items; and, Ensuring that the Change Backlog is transparent, visible and understood.
  • Practitioners - Accountable for Creating a plan for the Sprint, the Sprint Backlog; Instilling quality by adhering to a Definition of Done; Adapting their plan each day toward the Sprint Goal; and, Holding each other accountable as professionals.
  • Practice Coach - accountable for establishing Agility as defined in the Agility Guide and the Agility Team’s effectiveness

Delivery Team(s)

The entire Delivery Team is accountable for effectively creating a valuable, useful Increment every Sprint. Scrum defines three specific accountabilities within the Delivery Team: the Developers, the Product Owner, and the Scrum Master.

The following accountabilities have been adapted from the latest version of the Scrum Guide and are what we would recommend that [Company] consider in terms of the roles fulfilled within Delivery Teams working on ‘true’ Agile engagements. They reflect the realities of working with and for customers of varying degrees of Agility.

  • The Scrum Team - is accountable for effectively creating a valuable, useful Increment every Sprint.
    • Product Owner – Accountable for maximising the value of the product and for effective Product Backlog management; e.g. Developing and explicitly communicating the Product Goal; Creating and clearly communicating Product Backlog items; Ordering Product Backlog items; and, Ensuring that the Product Backlog is transparent, visible and understood.
      • Role: Product Owner (Customer) – This is a representative of the customer that should fulfil the accountabilities listed above.
      • Role: Product Owner Coach ([Company]) – Helps a good Product Owner become a great Product Owner and fills the gap when the customer is unable to fulfil. Additional accountability to [Company] to escalate any inadequacy in Product Ownership.
    • Developers – Accountable for Creating a plan for the Sprint, the Sprint Backlog; Instilling quality by adhering to a Definition of Done; Adapting their plan each day toward the Sprint Goal; and, Holding each other accountable as professionals.
      • Role: Developers – Including but not exclusive to coders, testers, business analysts, architects, solution architects, etc.
      • Role: Integration Team – When multiple teams are working together, there is additional accountability for integration assigned to a virtual group of the right people for the identified impediment.
    • The Scrum Master - accountable for establishing Scrum as defined in the Scrum Guide and the Scrum Team’s effectiveness
  • Customer Account Manager – Accountable to [Company] for any reporting required internally to validate the status of the account and budget with the customer.
  • Delivery Manager – When a single group of Developers needs to work on multiple small projects at once the Delivery Manager coordinates the work between the different Product Owner/Customer Account Manager and shields the Delivery Team from those complexities.
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