No, I am motivated by crossing the finish line.

To be excited about calling your shot and nailing it — estimating well, and then delivering within that estimate — it is not necessary that you be punished for failing.

That is the answer to “So what is the value of making a hard commitment without punishment?”

The answer to “What’s the point of committing to something, if everybody in the game knows that when we don’t keep the promise, nothing will happen?” is that it is not the case that “nothing” will happen. That is, there are not only the two options “punishment” and “nothing”. The third option is “learning”.

That is, if soft commitment is present and command-and-control is absent, that does not mean you don’t make promises. It means you make intrinsically motivated promises rather than extrnisincally motivated ones. The response to failing to keep an extrinsically motivated promise is fear of punishment; the response to failing to keep an intrinsically motivated promise is an eagerness to learn what went wrong, and how we can nail it next time.

Very interesting entry.
I want to comment on the first difficulty that you mention when “removing” hard commitments:
- External “commitments” to stakeholders: I think this is very usual. We all know that when introducing SCRUM, everybody mentions the importance of “corporate culture” and “senior buy in”. And how difficult it is to have this, not only mention int. So this “not ideal” corporate culture is very related to this difficulty: Sometimes SCRUM is introduced, but still there are questions “floating around” in senior management circles. The way to avoid it? Make them trust “this whole SCRUM thing” will work by showing a plan with results on it. That is translated to a plan with fixed deadlines.
I guess that removing hard commitments in a team can be something that can evolve over time. Once senior managers start seeing results, they are most likely to trust the implementation of a “hard commitment free” team culture.

Marta