Accepted Responsibility

Responsibility cannot be assigned; it can only be accepted. If someone tries to give you responsibility, only you can decide if you are responsible or if you aren't.

The practices reflect accepted responsibility by, for example, suggesting that whoever signs up to do work also estimates it. Similarly, the person responsible for implementing a story is ultimately responsible for the design, implementation, and testing of the story.

With responsibility comes authority. Misalignments distort the team's communication. When a process expert can tell me how to work, but doesn't share in that work or its consequences, authority and responsibility are misaligned. Neither of us is in an intellectual position to see or use the feedback we need to improve. There is also an emotional cost of living with misalignment.