My partner and I both have things we’d like to do every day. For her, it’s a set of concussion exercises; for me, some type of workout. Recently, we’ve experimented with a music-based accountability mechanism: any time one of us … Read more
Programming note: Merry Christmas! There will likely be another Bits about Money after the holiday but before New Year. Bits about Money is supported by our readers. If your education budget or business can underwrite the coming year of public … Read more
This is a transcript of my keynote presentation at the Agile Cambridge conference in England on October 2nd, 2025. The topic was “The Accountability Problem.” How do we define software department accountability so our business partners don’t do it for … Read more
Accountability engineering in institution design Back in the 1990s, ground squirrels were briefly fashionable pets, but their popularity came to an abrupt end after an incident at Schiphol Airport on the outskirts of Amsterdam. In April 1999, a cargo of … Read more
In The Unaccountability Machine, Dan Davies argues that organizations form “accountability sinks,” structures that absorb or obscure the consequences of a decision such that no one can be held directly accountable for it. Here’s an example: a higher up at … Read more