Engineering Culture by InfoQ

This is the Engineering Culture Podcast, from the people behind InfoQ.com and the QCon conferences. In this episode recorded at QCon London 2019 Shane Hastie, Lead Editor for Culture & Methods, first spoke to Andrea Dobson on balancing risk and psychological safety and Katherine Kirk on escaping organisational hell. Why listen to this podcast: • Where people work together we see behaviours that need coaching and that’s where organisational psychologists provide value • Psychological safety is necessary in order to be able to mitigate risks • Teams need to build habits that promote safety – ask more questions rather than blaming, and look for learning opportunities • There is a lot to learn from Eastern philosophy about empowering people to solve their own problems rather than solving it for them • One of the main reasons that organisation “transformations” don’t stick is due to the ingrained habits that haven’t been changed • Frequently the issue is that the effort involved in changing habits wasn’t taken into account when the transition plan was established • There are some common patterns which inhibit organisational change, these include: aversion, desire, restlessness (or busyness), dullness (exhaustion) and oscillating doubt More on this: Quick scan our curated show notes on InfoQ https://bit.ly/2Kg2NTX You can also subscribe to the InfoQ newsletter to receive weekly updates on the hottest topics from professional software development. bit.ly/24x3IVq Subscribe: www.youtube.com/infoq Like InfoQ on Facebook: bit.ly/2jmlyG8 Follow on Twitter: twitter.com/InfoQ Follow on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/infoq Check the landing page on InfoQ: https://bit.ly/2Kg2NTX

In this podcast, Shane Hastie, Lead Editor for Culture & Methods, spoke to Tim Falls of Digital Ocean about developer relations, the importance of embracing and providing open-source software, the need to offer free education in software development and the importance of ethics in education. Why listen to this podcast: • There is a need to take a more open and community-based approach to business • Taking an open-source viewpoint means you can build products and give them away for free while still building a sustainable business • If you’re solving a real problem for your customers, they will happily pay you for your solution • Not only can this approach build a successful business; it is a more enjoyable way of going about things • We need more and more people able to build software and providing free online education will enable the whole industry to grow More on this: Quick scan our curated show notes on InfoQ https://bit.ly/2Y3zWKi You can also subscribe to the InfoQ newsletter to receive weekly updates on the hottest topics from professional software development. bit.ly/24x3IVq Subscribe: www.youtube.com/infoq Like InfoQ on Facebook: bit.ly/2jmlyG8 Follow on Twitter: twitter.com/InfoQ Follow on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/infoq Check the landing page on InfoQ: https://bit.ly/2Y3zWKi

In this Shane Hastie, Lead Editor for Culture & Methods, spoke to Pablo Santos of Plastic SCM about what it takes to create a great engineering culture, dealing with skills shortages, engaging remote workers and getting the highest value out of DevOps. Why listen to this podcast: • Attracting the right people is a constant challenge in the technology space • Having interesting and challenging work is important • Remote workers are common today and it’s important to focus on keeping them engaged • DevOps is a way to create a continuous flow of stable changes and get them into production quickly • The art of splitting the work is key to DevOps and it is something that takes significant understanding and careful design More on this: Quick scan our curated show notes on InfoQ https://bit.ly/2ZZhAYn You can also subscribe to the InfoQ newsletter to receive weekly updates on the hottest topics from professional software development. bit.ly/24x3IVq Subscribe: www.youtube.com/infoq Like InfoQ on Facebook: bit.ly/2jmlyG8 Follow on Twitter: twitter.com/InfoQ Follow on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/infoq Check the landing page on InfoQ: https://bit.ly/2ZZhAYn

In this podcast Shane Hastie, Lead Editor for Culture & Methods, spoke to Jossie Haines and Aneri Shah of Tile on the culture at Tile, mentoring, diversity & inclusion and retaining women in technology Why listen to this podcast: • Genuine collaborative and supportive cultures don’t just happen • Corporate values need to be real to people, so they feel able to live them every day • Looking at diversity and inclusion is not a stand-alone activity – you need to address all aspects of the employee experience • Mentoring is important because under-represented groups tend to have the most challenges in the workplace and a proven way to help them achieve success is to provide them with mentors and sponsors • 56% of women leave the tech industries after 10-20 years due to their treatment in the workplace – this has to change and we know what to do to change it More on this: Quick scan our curated show notes on InfoQ https://bit.ly/2ZvoILL You can also subscribe to the InfoQ newsletter to receive weekly updates on the hottest topics from professional software development. bit.ly/24x3IVq Subscribe: www.youtube.com/infoq Like InfoQ on Facebook: bit.ly/2jmlyG8 Follow on Twitter: twitter.com/InfoQ Follow on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/infoq Check the landing page on InfoQ: https://bit.ly/2ZvoILL

In this podcast Shane Hastie, Lead Editor for Culture & Methods, spoke to Lee Cunningham about the latest State of Agile report, recently released by Collabnet/VersionOne. Why listen to this podcast: • This is the 13th year the State of Agile report has been released • There is a strengthening of momentum towards holistic value stream management • Most organisations are adopting agile for the right reasons: they are trying to accelerate the ability to get software built with high quality and get it into the hands of their customers, managing changing priorities and improve alignment between IT and business groups • The factors that impact success for scaling agile adoption are having internal agile coaches, executive coaches, company-provided training, consistent practices and processes and implementation of a common tool • Adoption of value stream thinking and integrating end-to-end delivery is an important goal that advanced organisations are adopting, but it’s a significant change that is not easy More on this: Quick scan our curated show notes on InfoQ https://bit.ly/2ZaAIlV You can also subscribe to the InfoQ newsletter to receive weekly updates on the hottest topics from professional software development. bit.ly/24x3IVq Subscribe: www.youtube.com/infoq Like InfoQ on Facebook: bit.ly/2jmlyG8 Follow on Twitter: twitter.com/InfoQ Follow on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/infoq Check the landing page on InfoQ: https://bit.ly/2ZaAIlV

In this podcast, Shane Hastie, Lead Editor for Culture & Methods, spoke to Nick White about his experiences as a medical patient under the care of a cross-functional, multi-disciplinary team and the lessons that we can take from that for software engineering Why listen to this podcast: • The collaborative approach to diagnosis by a multi-disciplinary team of specialists used by the Wellington Regional Hospital Cancer Care Unit • With a complex diagnosis like cancer the range of treatment options is wide and the multi-disciplinary approach enables the best possible combination of treatments and more successful patient outcomes • Setting a goal of coming back from the surgery to continue as a mountain runner • Running up Mt Fuji to raise funds and awareness for cancer research • As technologists we need to be open to learning from other disciplines in areas such as collaboration approaches, dealing with hand-offs and bottle-necks, and customer service More on this: Quick scan our curated show notes on InfoQ https://bit.ly/2WpvzZd You can also subscribe to the InfoQ newsletter to receive weekly updates on the hottest topics from professional software development. bit.ly/24x3IVq Subscribe: www.youtube.com/infoq Like InfoQ on Facebook: bit.ly/2jmlyG8 Follow on Twitter: twitter.com/InfoQ Follow on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/infoq Check the landing page on InfoQ: https://bit.ly/2WpvzZd

In this Shane Hastie, Lead Editor for Culture & Methods, spoke to Michael Bolton about the current and future state of testing. Why listen to this podcast: • Testing is about evaluating products by learning about them through exploration and experimentation • These is confusion about the difference between testing a small bit of functionality and the complexity that arises when many of these small bits of software are combined into systems • The common approach of using unit tests and checking the output of transactions they are not looking for trouble, they are looking to demonstrate that everything is OK, and this is a dangerous perspective • The need for testing of machine learning so that it reflects what we aspire to be, rather than what we are, which requires testers to become ethicists, sociologists, psychologists, anthropologists and artists • The evolution of testing is not about changes in tools and technologies, it is about applying the tester mindset to the new types of systems being tested today More on this: Quick scan our curated show notes on InfoQ https://bit.ly/2WPoRJ7 You can also subscribe to the InfoQ newsletter to receive weekly updates on the hottest topics from professional software development. bit.ly/24x3IVq Subscribe: www.youtube.com/infoq Like InfoQ on Facebook: bit.ly/2jmlyG8 Follow on Twitter: twitter.com/InfoQ Follow on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/infoq Check the landing page on InfoQ: https://bit.ly/2WPoRJ7

In this Shane Hastie, Lead Editor for Culture & Methods, spoke to Dave Snowden at the Agile People conference in Stockholm, Sweden, about the addition of liminal spaces in the Cynefin framework, pre-scrum techniques and the future of agility Why listen to this podcast: • The Cynefin Framework provides a perspective on the world • The latest version of the Cynefin framework include two liminal domains • The strength of approaches like Scrum is holding things in a liminal state long enough to become right, before they move to complicated • In the complex domain the keys are identifying coherent hypotheses and running parallel safe-to-fail experiments • There is a whole body of techniques for addressing IT problems and there is no one right answer – use the techniques best suited to the nature of the problem More on this: Quick scan our curated show notes on InfoQ https://bit.ly/2Hh5qn0 You can also subscribe to the InfoQ newsletter to receive weekly updates on the hottest topics from professional software development. bit.ly/24x3IVq Subscribe: www.youtube.com/infoq Like InfoQ on Facebook: bit.ly/2jmlyG8 Follow on Twitter: twitter.com/InfoQ Follow on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/infoq Check the landing page on InfoQ: https://bit.ly/2Hh5qn0

In this Shane Hastie, Lead Editor for Culture & Methods, spoke to Fabiola Eyholze at the Agile People conference in Stockholm, Sweden, about the need to radically change HR thinking and practices in organisations to enable creativity and productivity. Why listen to this podcast: • The need to create great places of work where people enjoy going to work • It’s about having meaningful work; understanding why we do things and our contribution is to making a positive impact on other peoples’ lives • We want people to think outside the box and be creative at work and that means we need to create workplaces that support them to do so • We thrive when we bring diversity into teams – different personalities and approaches result in better outcomes • Most HR people do genuinely care about other people, about engagement and about creating healthy workspaces; yet HR is often so process-driven that they forget about the important people factors More on this: Quick scan our curated show notes on InfoQ https://bit.ly/2GYAp6f You can also subscribe to the InfoQ newsletter to receive weekly updates on the hottest topics from professional software development. bit.ly/24x3IVq Subscribe: www.youtube.com/infoq Like InfoQ on Facebook: bit.ly/2jmlyG8 Follow on Twitter: twitter.com/InfoQ Follow on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/infoq Check the landing page on InfoQ: https://bit.ly/2GYAp6f

In this Shane Hastie, Lead Editor for Culture & Methods, spoke to Doug Kirkpatrick at the Agile People conference in Stockholm, Sweden, about what self-management actually means for the people in an organisation. Why listen to this podcast: • Self-management enables everyone in the organisation to thrive and do their best work • It’s not about layers of control, rather it’s dense networks of committed self-managers guided by a clear set of principles • It’s the responsibility of each self-manager to guide their own career • Decision rights come down to who is the best person to make that particular decision • Great organisation culture is one where people are happy, free to do their best work, engaged in high levels of good, effective collaboration and are able to contribute to the world More on this: Quick scan our curated show notes on InfoQ https://bit.ly/2DHpq0a You can also subscribe to the InfoQ newsletter to receive weekly updates on the hottest topics from professional software development. bit.ly/24x3IVq Subscribe: www.youtube.com/infoq Like InfoQ on Facebook: bit.ly/2jmlyG8 Follow on Twitter: twitter.com/InfoQ Follow on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/infoq Check the landing page on InfoQ: https://bit.ly/2DHpq0a