Head on over to the Agile Journal and click on the article titled Personal Agility For Potent Agile Adoption by Amr Elssamadisy and Ashley Johnson, two friends of mine who are thought leaders in agile and lean software development. They say that the Responsibility Process™ is core to agile behavior. Here’s an excerpt:

Figure 1 represents a model that we find invaluable in helping individuals become agile rather than simply going through the motions of acting agile.[i] It explains the mental process we, as human beings, go through when we avoid responsibility and destroy the ownership behavior essential to self-organizing teams.

Figure 1: The Responsibility Process

Imagine you’re leaving home for a critical meeting. You’re not late yet but you have no time to lose. You grab your laptop bag, reach for your keys, and… they aren’t there! What’s the first thing that crosses your mind? Who moved my keys? Or, honey – did you take my keys? Regardless of the exact words, most of us instinctively look for someone else to blame when something goes wrong. This behavior is a strategy we use unconsciously to avoid taking responsibility for our situation.  (In the diagram, you are on the bottom behavior – laying blame.)

I like it.

I agree that  the Responsibility Process is core to agile behavior. And I’m especially glad that Amr and Ashley published this article because I’ve been admiring their use of the term “personal agility” to describe agile behavior.