Placing Blame

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

Spending time to place blame takes away from fixing the problem.

Originally Posted by EricH

You don't place blame.

We have a team scapegoat*, who is blamed for everything. It is an actual title, like CEO and lead engineer.

It is fully clear to everyone on the team that none of this is that poor soul's fault, s/he is completely blameless. Thus, the scapegoat feels OK (they know it's really not their fault) and the team feels good (they blamed someone) - allowing us to move on to the real issue, fixing it and preventing it in the future.

Don

*(Sometimes called the "Escape-goat" if we need to get outta there in a hurry...)