On Commitment...

Commitment is one of five Scrum values. The other four are: courage, focus, openness, and respect.

Most trainers cover these values in their trainings. Commitment is the one that sparks - from my experience - the most discussions. What does it mean to be committed?

I have heard plenty of trainers use the following analogy: "A team is committed to the Sprint Goal the same way partners are committed in a marriage." Maybe you have heard this analogy, too.

I think it is a very flawed analogy as teams do not meet their Sprint Goals in many cases. I do hope that partners in a marriage are more faithful to each other than that.

For me, the key difference is the following: I vow to my wife to be faithful to her. The same way I can vow to tell the truth in front of a judge.

I vow on things that are 100% in my control, in my power. I vow on things that are certain.

Failing to deliver on my vow is to 100% on me. No excuses!

I can blame circumstances e.g. I was too drunk and thus fell for that other woman. But it was my choice to get drunk in the first place. It was my choice to go to that party. It was my choice to do...

A commitment, on the other hand, is done in the face of uncertainty and it ultimately means that a team commits to do the work to their best of their abilities... but it does not guarantee an outcome.

Why not? Because not everything is in their control.

They might face dependencies to another team. They might have uncertainties with regards to how much work is actually in front of them. They might have a lot of unknown unknowns in front of them.

Uncertainty is the BIG difference.

Unless we understand that uncertainty exists and unless we acknowledge the implications incl. not being able to predict exactly what can be delivered by the end of a Sprint let alone by the end of a year, we won't be able to collaborate in any meaningful way.

There is a reason why teams in highly uncertain domains (most of product development falls into that category) make estimates at best and not exact predictions.

There is a reason why it makes sense to regularly (in many cases daily) inspect and adapt on how we are making progress and whether we are facing any impediments.

There is a reason why we plan in shorter cycles (1-4 week sprints or iterations) instead of creating 5-year plans in detail.

Uncertainty is real... and uncertainty constantly increases with the pace of technological advancement.

It is up to us as leaders to distinguish between different domains of work and how much predictability they allow us to make.

I am not saying that we should not ask our teams for commitments... we actually should. But we also need understand that a commitment is not a vow.

#FromNothingComesNothing