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Home » The Accountability Key » 2P. How Accountability Works on a Team
- 2P1. The team leader makes the commitments for the team’s outcomes (after the team has planned and made their own commitments) and has individual accountability for those outcomes.
- 2P2. The team leader also has individual accountability to:
- 2P2i. Ensure the team’s outcome is produced effectively (it meets requirements) and efficiently.
- 2P2ii. Build working relationships within the team and with its stakeholders.
- 2P2iii. Ensure the team as a whole, and the individual members within the team, are successful.
- 2P2iv. Ensure the processes the team uses (such as the project management and technical processes) are both effective and efficient.
- 2P3. The team member has individual accountability to:
- 2P3i. Ensure his individual outcomes (deliverables) are produced effectively (they meet requirements) and efficiently.
- 2P3ii. Build working relationships with anyone that can affect the production of her deliverables or whom she can affect while producing her deliverables.
- 2P4. Team members share team accountability for the outcomes committed to by the team leader.
- 2P5. Shared accountability:
- 2P5i. All accountable individuals share organizational accountability for making sure the organization is a success.
- 2P5ii. The members of a team share team accountability for the team’s outcomes.
- 2P5iia. That team outcome (either a deliverable or a goal) is further broken down into individual outcomes which are then “owned” by individual members of the team (individual accountability).
- 2P5iii. Individual accountability is not shared.
- 2P5iiia. Therefore, no two people should have individual accountability for the same outcome.
- 2P6. Overlapping accountability:
- 2P6i. An overlap of accountability occurs between the individual accountability of the team leader and the team accountability of the members of the team.
- 2P6ia. Members of a team have team accountability for the team’s outcome, and the team leader has individual accountability for that same outcome.
- 2P6ib. Figure 2.14. The overlap of team and individual accountability.
- 2P6ii. An overlap of accountability also occurs between the individual accountability of the team leader and the individual accountability of the various team members.
- 2P6iia. The team leader has individual accountability for the team outcome. That outcome is then subdivided into individual goals or deliverables that members of the team accept accountability for. (The team leader might also have individual goals/deliverables to produce as part of her team membership.) The team members have individual accountability for their individual outcomes, which collectively make up the team leader’s outcome. If a team member fails to achieve his outcome, the team leader may also fail to achieve her outcome since the individual’s outcome is part of the team leader’s outcome. This is an overlap of accountability.
- 2P6iib. Figure 2.15. Diagram of overlapping individual accountability.
