I am fortunate to be in a position where I get to take on the role of "blame sponge" in product management. You can get a shocking amount of attention if you do

I am fortunate to be in a position where I get to take on the role of "blame sponge" in product management. You can get a shocking amount of attention if you don't shy away from diving into taking responsibility for the outcome of projects. I always figure if you don't take on ownership when things go bad then did you ever really own it? I will say this is more effective with the actual "doers" at an organization. Exec teams may not take it as well. If things do go sideways, the executive team does still appreciate properly managed retrospectives. You can both take responsibility for something and have it not be a shortcoming of you personally. "I could have suggested a change to process A to avoid this.", "I could have arranged a meeting on the topic earlier. Formalizing this as a step in the future will prevent this." People are constantly protecting their egos a that level and when an idea they signed up for doesn't go the way they want it helps to have someone who can unpack what occurred who doesn't go around looking for someone to blame. *Focus on process, not people* is something I carried with me from the nuclear industry. It helps to divorce egos from trying to address a valid problem with the org.