Success! We’ve just released a new version of our software, this calls for a celebration. All the team march down to the local bar for a well earned beer or an orange juice for the designated driver. But what’s that annoying noise in my jacket pocket, my mobile phone’s ringing and it’s the boss. Some customers have just upgraded and now they are reporting serious problems with their systems, looks like we better get ready to play the blame game.
For those people who have never played the blame game before, we need to set out the rules. The rules are actually quite simple, if in doubt seek the advice of a seasoned player. The first rule of the blame game is, it’s never your fault. The second rule of the blame game is, it’s never your fault. The third rule of the blame game is, it’s always some one else’s fault. So now we’ve established the rules, we need to work out some tactics to work out whose fault it actually is.
The first candidate for blame always has to be the last person to leave the company. Anything that’s wrong can easily be blamed on them, after all they can’t defend themselves so they make an ideal target. The next candidate can be chosen from any of the temporary staff you currently employ, the shorter the contract the better. If you aren’t going to have to see these people for much longer, this should work out quite nicely. The next candidate is anyone that’s working for the company in another location (if it’s another country this works even better). You might have to work with these people again, but you’re probably not going to see them on a daily basis, it shouldn’t be too awkward. Now this is where your choices start to become a little tricky, you’re down to the people that you work with everyday.
You have to keep this simple and align yourselves with the strongest members of the team, after all this is survival of the fittest. Fit yourself nicely into the crowd and look for anyone that doesn’t quite fit, this is real back to basics school ground behaviour. Pick off the weak and vulnerable first as these shouldn’t put up much of a resistance, then work your way up the power hierarchy until you find your patsy. So there you have it, those are the basic tactics for the blame game you might have to tweak as appropriate within your organisation but the general approach should apply.
The most important decision you face when presented with the blame game is do you really want to play? If you decide that it’s really not for you, the best way to deal with it is to simply throw out all of the rules, rip the board in half, stamp your feet as hard as you can and shout out loud, “I refuse to play”. It is often said that; “we work in a blame free culture, until something goes wrong”. Are you really interested in finding someone to blame when something goes wrong? Will it really help the customer solve their problem any sooner if you’ve found the person to carry the can for the failure? In the time it takes to sit there and rack your brains for potential candidates to take the blame, you could already be investigating the cause of the problems and attempting to fix them. In his recent post Sean Landis said;
Successful Agile development presupposes that team members will all act like adults. That’s a euphemism for being competent and professional. Agile teams are expected to accept a high level of responsibility and accountability. When they don’t, things can fall apart really fast.
Regardless of how bullet proof a process claims to be, there are always going to be issues that weren’t found prior to the release. If issues are always going to occur, should teams really be allowed to turn on each other in response to them, will this really lead to a better working relationship? The most important thing is that problems are dealt with promptly and professionally when they arise. Instead of trying to assign blame, people should be responsible for their own actions, they need to learn from the experience and measures should be put in place (if possible) to prevent this happening again. Next time your team is out celebrating your latest release and your mobile phone starts to ring, do you really want to start playing the blame game?