Congratulations on finally arriving to the dissertation portion of your doctoral degree. A doctorate is the highest level of education. The road begins after a seemingly endless series of preparatory courses – and now, here we are! Imagining eventually compiling an 80,000-ish-word, expert composition on your topic, then defending it to a committee of scholars, who momentarily will become your peers, can duly bring on the jitters. However, with proper planning, organization, consistency and discipline, this path can lead to the Finish Line.
What is Agile Accountability?
The operative term, Agile stems from the noun, agility which refers to the capacity to carry out actions rapidly with ease or nimbleness. Agility is evident by a keen sense to think and readily draw conclusions with strategic acuity.
Agile (adjective)
Ag· ile | \ ˈa-jəl , -ˌjī(-ə)l \
Definition of Agile
1: marked by ready ability to move with quick easy grace – an agile dancer
2: having a quick resourceful and adaptable character – an agile mind
In the context of project management, Agile is concerned with the tooling of a project or in this case, dissertation writing journey from start to finish. Agile projects follow a stepwise or iterative pattern that when followed properly, can lead to the delivery of high-quality output. Rather than rolling on a linear course, Agile activities are chunked performed through a series of timeboxed increments known as sprints.
Agile ventures propose to manifest as trust, flexibility, empowerment and collaboration. A key component supporting the Agile structure is accountability.
Accountability (noun)
Ac· count· abil· i· ty | \ ə-ˌkau̇n-tə-ˈbi-lə-tē \
Definition of Accountability
1: the quality or state of being accountable especially: an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one’s actions – public officials lacking accountability
Agile Expert and Scrum ‘Caretaker’, Gunther Verheyen explains that accountability’ speaks to the condition of ‘being accountable’ or showing both the ability and the willingness to share a result, along with how that particular result occurred. Verheyen emphasized that accountability had less to do with the actual result than all of the interrelated components that led to it.[1] In other words, we got here! The proof is in the pudding.
For more information on the Agile Accountability Project Management, visit organicacademia.net (presently under construction, but check link often). Stay Getting to Magnificent and Own Your Work.