Dolly Parton Can Improve Your Teamwork... - Mike Cohn
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Jul 17, 2025
The discussion highlights Dolly Parton's creative approach to promoting graduation through a buddy system, which significantly reduced dropouts. It emphasizes the power of mutual accountability, suggesting that teamwork thrives when members feel responsible for each other's success. Listeners learn practical strategies for fostering collaboration in agile teams, such as improving communication, managing small backlog items, and encouraging shared responsibilities. The podcast showcases how collective effort leads to better results for everyone involved.
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question_answer ANECDOTE
Dolly's Buddy Program Success
Dolly Parton promised $500 to 7th and 8th graders if they graduated high school with a buddy who also graduated.
This buddy program reduced dropouts from 35% to 6%, showing the power of shared accountability.
insights INSIGHT
Shared Accountability Boosts Teams
Shared accountability makes teams help each other succeed rather than work in isolation.
Programmers and testers collaborate better when they care about mutual success and consequences.
volunteer_activism ADVICE
Practical Tips for Agile Teams
Break work into small backlog items and hand them off frequently to reduce waiting and waste.
Collaborate closely, overlap work, and avoid last-minute testing to improve flow and quality.
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Dolly Parton Can Improve Your Teamwork... - Mike Cohn
Would you like to get a check from Dolly Parton for $500? I would. In an effort to reduce the number of students who dropped out of high school in her home county, she promised all 7th and 8th grade students she would give them each $500 if they graduated from high school. She added a catch: They’d only receive the money if a buddy they chose also graduated. Dolly’s Buddy Program reduced high school dropouts from 35% to 6%. She clearly understood the importance of accountability to one another: a student contemplating dropping out may not when they factor in the financial impact on their buddy. I wish Dolly Parton would make a similar offer to teams. The best teams understand that they succeed (or fail) together. No one benefits when the programmers finish coding on the last day of an iteration, and leave testers no time to test. When shared accountability pervades a team, people help each other. Programmers may write more unit tests if they know testers will be challenged. Or they may execute some tests themselves. If testers are concerned that programmers may not finish, they can help by identifying earlier and sharing the edge cases that programmers may overlook. There’s always something you can do to help your coworkers. Beyond helping out in a pinch, here are some practices that help a team succeed together:
Small backlog items that flow through the process more smoothly
Small, frequent handoffs to reduce waiting
Close collaboration to improve communication
Overlapping work to avoid leaving too much testing until the end
Daily scrum meetings to encourage accountability to one another
Fostering an attitude that everyone succeeds together may not get you a $500 check from Dolly Parton, but it will help you succeed with agile.
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