How does an organization foster a Culture of Commitment?

Now that you are hopefully convinced that you want your organization to be steeped in a Culture of Commitment, how do you infuse the CofC in your company’s DNA? The “Culture of Commitment enabling” markers your teams need to strive for are depicted below.

The first key to achieving an instilled CofC in the agile way is making sure you have created an environment where team members feel a strong sense of support for being dedicated to achieving their team’s Sprint Goals. When the team knows its singular focus for the next 2 – 4 weeks is taking these Goals over the finish line, the scrum team can feel empowered to commit to the Goals knowing they are in the driver’s seat for getting to that destination or not. The next key to getting a CofC is preparing for and executing the Sprint Planning meeting with the foundations that allows the team scrum to commit to the Sprint Goals. The team needs to believe in the backlog, how well it is groomed and how much work they are able to take on for the next 2 – 4 weeks. They also need to approach the Sprint Planning meeting as a true team – everyone is in the boat together. If the gang in Sprint Planning is really a team working towards and accountable for the shared Sprint Goals rather than a collection of individuals working on unrelated tasks, a CofC will inevitably rise to the forefront.

So, get a heavy dose of dedication, a disciplined Sprint Planning meeting, and a cohesive accountable team and you will be seeing a Culture of Commitment take root in your organization. The following articles will peel into detail for each of these key enablers of a Culture of Commitment.