Ownership preferred to roles

It would be coherent that in an agile environment ownership is preferred to roles.

An agile initiative is to be the responsibility of an entire team, including ALL stake holders. Each team member will take ownership within their area of expertise and/or responsibility (pull), the team then self organizes in order to deliver the agreed value. Trust is the fundamental ingredient and commitment to team work is enhanced.

In the case of directed team organization, roles are distributed to those involved in the initiative (push), and team members may not fully own their area of responsibility. Commitment in such case may not be optimal, team work suffers, and trust is compromised.

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This post is inspired by the thoughts of Mike Burrows from Agendashift

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Author: Mario Aiello

Hi, I’m Mario – a retired agility warrior from a major Swiss bank, beyond agile explorer, lean thinker, former rugby player, and wishful golfer. What frustrates me most? Poor agile adoption, illusionary scaling, and the lack of true business agility. I believe agility should fit purpose, context, and practice – and continuously evolve. Active in the agile space since 2008, my consulting journey began in 2012, helping a digital identity unit adopt Scrum at team level. That work led to the design of an Agile Operating System for the entire organization. Today, as an independent consultant, I help organizations unlock sustainable agility – guided by adaptive intelligence: sensing challenges, learning fast, and adapting with purpose.