Very insightful article Ben. Glad I've discovered your substack.
I feel like shared accountability is a bit of an oxymoron. The example of "Defining the scope of projects together at kickoff and in-flight trade-off decisions" could easily be broken down into individual accountabilities for each role.
Although it's a different context, a good example is how AWS defines the shared accountability of security on the cloud (https://aws.amazon.com/compliance/shared-responsibility-model/). Yes, as a whole, the responsibility is shared between the customer and AWS, but there are clear expectations of what each party is responsible for.
Glad you found this Hadi! You are indeed right, such a responsibility could be broken down into individual accountabilities for each role, perhaps with a shared outcome as per the security example. Indeed organisations that lean towards the accountability style would most likely structure that way, and it'd probably be "clearer" and "simpler" too. It'd perhaps be seen as radical in such organisations to lean more towards the contribution style, to acknowledge certain areas of work that have different roles contributing in similar ways or in accordance with individual strengths. While I am encouraging a balance in this post, I have seen preferences in organisations and people of both sides, and so this tends to result in "like attracting like". That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I wonder if it creates diversity?
Very insightful article Ben. Glad I've discovered your substack.
I feel like shared accountability is a bit of an oxymoron. The example of "Defining the scope of projects together at kickoff and in-flight trade-off decisions" could easily be broken down into individual accountabilities for each role.
Although it's a different context, a good example is how AWS defines the shared accountability of security on the cloud (https://aws.amazon.com/compliance/shared-responsibility-model/). Yes, as a whole, the responsibility is shared between the customer and AWS, but there are clear expectations of what each party is responsible for.
Glad you found this Hadi! You are indeed right, such a responsibility could be broken down into individual accountabilities for each role, perhaps with a shared outcome as per the security example. Indeed organisations that lean towards the accountability style would most likely structure that way, and it'd probably be "clearer" and "simpler" too. It'd perhaps be seen as radical in such organisations to lean more towards the contribution style, to acknowledge certain areas of work that have different roles contributing in similar ways or in accordance with individual strengths. While I am encouraging a balance in this post, I have seen preferences in organisations and people of both sides, and so this tends to result in "like attracting like". That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I wonder if it creates diversity?