Everyone is NOT Responsible for Quality

The phrase "quality is everyone's responsibility" in Agile is problematic and often leads to diffused accountability. True quality commitment requires shared standards, sufficient knowledge, and clear control—difficult to achieve when responsibility is distributed. The chain analogy shows each person only answers for their own work, while total redundancy is impractical beyond small teams. Herd responsibility can invert accountability, making no one answerable. Instead, quality requires localized, personalized responsibility with clear roles: developers own their code quality, dedicated testers handle systematic testing, and project leaders control overall product quality.