Agile Success Can Depend on Just 2 Words

We've all been there: We join an Agile team, we observe the team dynamics and behaviors, attend some ceremonies and demos, and we wonder how the definition of "Agile" can possibly apply to what we're witnessing. We Agilists always joke about "little a" Agile, in which a team uses the language and set dressing of Agile frameworks to describe the same Waterfall behaviors they've always used. And while I would never measure an Agile team by their adherence to the details of a specific Agile framework, I do think there is one specific tenet of "capital A" Agile that I consider to be the most important. It's small, it's simple, but it represents a core principle of Agile that can be that transformative piece most teams never quite achieve.?

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Two words. "I commit.."?

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Consider the typical daily standup on less effective Agile teams. Team members arrive and say "I'm working on the new login screen. I should be done today. No blockers." Maybe a team member or two get to talking about an issue, maybe an Agile project manager asks why a story is taking so long. From the outside, the meeting looks and sounds an awful lot like a mini-version of a low-value-add weekly status meeting. As team members get less and less value out of these sessions, they pay less and less attention, and don't mentally prepare for or think about what they need from their team when they join. It becomes just another annoying meeting they multi-task away.?

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The game-changing outcome that strong Agile teams achieve is the behavioral shift that occurs when team members feel truly accountable to each other. Agile Scrum is all about creating a rolling set of deadlines: release deadlines every 2-3 months, sprint deadlines every 2 weeks, and a daily accountability deadline to your team members. I vividly remember my first Scrum on a team that used the "I commit" format.. That first day, I parroted the words I heard my teammates using, and said "I commit to researching Angular as an alternative to our current front-t end framework". The next day I watched my teammates one by one give their updates: "Yesterday I committed to finishing the sorting component, and I closed that out." They had made good on those commitments to their team members. They held their accountability. I had to look them in the eye and reveal that I had not in fact done what I committed.?

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This experience made me think about those stand ups completely differently. I had to actually think about my day ahead and consider how much time I had to dedicate to the stories the team had committed to. I had to decide what I could personally commit to. I had to think about the words I would say in the next stand up so that I was actually committing to a specific outcome. I did not want to be the guy who showed up every day that had not followed through on his commitments. By the end of our first sprint, I had gone through my Agile "Ah-Ha" moment. This team was trusting each other with project challenges and showing up in a way that propelled the whole effort forward.?

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"I commit" can be that powerful. Observe your team in the next few Scrum meetings and figure out if they are showing up to each other the way they should.? If you frequently find stories sliding to the next sprint, or your team's velocity stagnating below where it should be, insist on this approach. Jot down what each team member committed to on the previous day and ask how they are doing with their specific commitment. You may find that behind all of the Agile trappings and systems and ceremonies and proper nouns, accountability is the missing element that can truly push your team to the next level of performance.?