Building Compassionate Software

Presented at iOSoho: https://www.meetup.com/iOSoho/events/232809656/

More information available here: https://ashfurrow.com/blog/building-compassionate-software/

Transcript

1. Ash Furrow Artsy Auctions Compassionate Building Software
2. Psychological Safety
3. Agenda 1. Feelings matter. 2. Teams with psychological safety perform better. 3. Implementing psychological safety on your team.
4. Feelings Matter
5. Science Says So
6. Empathy • Seeing the world as others see it. • Recognizing and understanding another’s feelings. • Staying non-judgemental. • Communicating that you understand.
7. Teams with Psychological Safety Perform Better
8. The belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes. Psychological Safety:
9. Project Aristotle • Five-year study of team dynamics at Google. • Goal: find predictor of high-performing teams. • Conclusion: psychological safety correlates with performance.
10. Think Back.
11. Psychological Safety • Important that developers feel able to ask questions, raise concerns. • Especially necessary in small, resource-constrained teams.
12. Psychological Safety at Artsy
13. Measuring • Psychological safety is observed in groups as two behaviours: • Conversational turn-taking. • Average emotional sensitivity.
14. Benefits • Higher team performance. • Makes team members feel more welcome.
15. Implementing Psychological Safety on Your Team
17. Role Modelling • Admit fallibility. • Frame all work as learning experiences. • Model curiosity.
18. Everybody Struggles
19. Framing Work as Learning Experiences
20. Model Curiosity
21. Other Good Ideas • Small talk at the beginning of meetings. • Watch out for people getting interrupted in meetings. • Don’t push for immediate feedback. • Allow space to revisit discussions. • Practice empathy: reflect on meetings, focus on peers’ feelings.
23. Boring Good Ideas • Schedule recurring appointments to review your week. • Block off time immediately following meetings to reflect.
24. Opportunities • Retrospectives and/or post-mortems. • Peer and performance reviews. • Hiring process.
25. Wrap Up 1. Feelings matter, science says so. 2. High psychological safety correlates with performance. 3. Operationalizing psychological safety is hard but worth it.
26. Sleep on it