Deepening our people to weather the org

Devops is about changing technical culture. But technical culture isn’t created in a vacuum – it's nurtured and reinforced by the broader organisational culture our tech orgs are part of.

That culture comes from people – our artifacts, beliefs, and assumptions. Unless we deepen our people's skills, knowledge, and experience, we'll get the culture change we deserve.

What does technical culture change look like, and how does it survive? And why are people the hardest but most important piece of the puzzle to change?

Transcript

1. Deepening our people to weather the org 
 
 Lindsay Holmwood 
 @auxesis
2. What makes high performing teams endure?
3. How do you create a resilient culture?
4. What is culture?
5. Schein’s three levels of culture
6. Artifacts Values Assumptions
7. National Organisational Team Occupational
8. Artifacts
9. physical manifestations of culture
10. ceremonies
11. org charts
12. desk layout
13. documentation
14. software
15. most visible parts of an org’s culture
16. easiest part of a culture to adopt
17. Values
18. conscious goals, strategies, and philosophies
19. rules that guide how we interact with people
20. rules that guide how we do our work
21. “we will dominate the market”
22. “management is available, and listen to our concerns”
23. “we value quality over delivery speed”
24. “nobody will be fired for making an honest mistake”
25. values: lived vs aspirational
26. Communication We have an obligation to communicate.
27. Respect We treat others as we would like to be treated.
28. Integrity We work with customers and prospects openly, honestly, and sincerely.
29. Excellence We are satisfied with nothing less than the very best in everything we do.
30. Ethical We conduct business affairs in accordance with all applicable laws and in a moral and honest manner.
32. Work as imagined vs Work as done
33. Be clear about what values are what
34. Assumptions
35. beliefs, perceptions, thoughts, feelings
36. exist at an unconscious level
37. hard to discern
38. “anyone can take on leadership responsibility”
39. “bad outcomes come from bad people”
40. “it’s OK to withhold information”
41. “individual performance is valued over team performance”
42. “we can’t trust that team”
43. “people over profits”
44. “profits over people”
46. If we can change our people, we can change our culture
47. – Graham Henry “Better people make better All Blacks”
48. What makes a good team member?
49. Trust
50. Vulnerability
51. Assume the best of others
52. Aware of their cognitive biases
53. Aware of the Fundamental Attribution Error
54. We judge others by their actions. We judge ourselves by our intentions.
55. Aware of Hindsight Bias
56. “knew it all along” effect
57. Talk about events with knowledge of the outcome
58. memory distortion to form a judgement distortion
59. “you were responsible for this failure”
60. neglectful, inattentive, derelict of duty
61. bad outcomes only come from bad actions
62. • MH17 tragedy reveals need for flight path overhaul • Flight MH17 took abandoned flight path • MH17 flightpath questioned as Malaysia mourns second airline tragedy • Flight MH17 ‘could have avoided Ukrainian airspace for $66 per passenger’ • Why was MH17’s flight path over a conflict zone?
63. • news.com.au • skynews.com.au • abc.net.au • dailymail.co.uk • pbs.org
64. Hindsight is your culture killer
65. Explain in terms of foresight
66. trust hard to build, easy to lose
67. 5:1 ratio
68. regular 1:1s
69. create a space for people to vent
70. create a space for people to complain
71. regular, minimum half hour
72. take a genuine interest
73. eliminate performance reviews
74. Thrive in conflict
75. Ideas vs Personality
76. Can discern between the two
77. Strong opinions, loosely held
78. Willing to play devils advocate
79. Commit and act
80. Shared goal setting
81. Don’t solutioneer and push down
82. provide context about strategy
83. provide context about desired outcome
84. Ideas must come from bottom up
85. Leadership is there to facilitate
86. You don’t need consensus
87. But you need commitment
88. People must be willing to put personal opinions aside
89. Don’t have to actively sabotage
90. Disagreement is OK
91. “I don’t agree with the decision, but I’m going to do everything I can to see it succeed”
92. What makes a good team?
93. – Graham Henry “Better people make better All Blacks”
94. Influence on hiring process
95. Look for attributes that indicate a willingness to adapt when working in a team
96. Chunk your hiring to be map/reduce
97. What Who Map Qualify team fit Team members Map Qualify tech talent Team members Reduce Rubber stamp Team lead
98. Have a consistent script (and be prepared to improvise)
99. Every question tests a hypothesis
100. “the candidate can distinguish between criticism of them and their work”
101. “the candidate can engage in conflict about ideas”
102. Everyone has veto power
103. Leadership vetoing at the last moment?
104. That’s a systemic problem with team alignment, not the hiring process.
105. Benefit: The team talks to the candidate (without leadership present)
106. Benefit: The candidate talks to the team (without leadership present)
107. Benefit: Many, different perspectives
108. Benefit: Unblocks management bottlenecks
109. Risk: Uncovers dysfunction and misalignment in your team
110. Hire good people, and get out of their way
111. Diversity and inclusion
112. Race Gender Sexual orientation Age Socio-economic status
113. Location Disability Experience Work hours
114. You hire for diversity by seeking out diverse candidates
115. Sponsor events & attend meetups
116. Make it clear in your job descriptions you are seeking candidates from diverse backgrounds
117. Diversity is for naught if you don’t include, adapt, and embrace differences as part of your culture
118. That means: Changing things that are “the way we do things here”
119. That means: Listening to new, dissenting voices
120. That means: There will be uncomfortable conversations
121. That means: Creating safe mechanisms for people to raise criticism
122. Safe: Voluntary Non-punitive
123. That means: Acting on that criticism
124. Leadership in the absence of leadership
125. Having a title isn’t a requirement for leadership
126. If the lead steps away, the team functions effectively for an extended period of time
127. surprises are indicators of team misalignment
128. Give the team their own umbrellas
129. the team fosters conflict around ideas themselves
130. the team has the authority and autonomy to remove blockers themselves
131. ask forgiveness, not permission
132. empowerment vs authority
133. empowerment is giving permission from above
134. empowerment is lending power
135. authority is giving power
136. authority is granting autonomy, and asking forgiveness
137. local rationality
139. team leaders can now: observe & influence trends & behaviour across the org
140. team leaders can now: provide better context to the team
141. team leaders can now: provide minor course corrections
142. Part of something bigger than the team
143. Build people up for the next job
144. Guilds in the Spotify model
145. Technology Leadership Delivery Service design Product
146. Run them like meetups
147. Regular, fortnightly
148. 1-2 talks & Lean coffee
149. Get senior management to come and observe
150. Be present. Be visible. Contribute.
151. How do we make culture resilient?
152. We talk a lot about culture
153. What we’re typically talking about is tech culture
154. Tech culture isn’t created in a vacuum
155. Tech culture is shaped by the broader organisational culture.
156. Tech culture is reflective of the broader organisational culture.
157. – Edward Deming “A bad system beats a good person, every time.”
158. We can change technical culture
159. But can it resist the influence of the broader org culture?
160. Our systems are artifacts
161. Our processes are artifacts
162. Artifacts Values Assumptions
163. They’re a snapshot of our org’s culture
164. They’re a snapshot of our org’s values and assumptions
165. Artifacts influence behaviour
166. Working with artifacts changes our perception of our org’s values
167. Encode the org behaviour you want to see into your artifacts
168. Change your org’s values by changing your artifacts
169. Artifact: Make deployment fast and safe
170. Value: “We ensure quality by going fast”
171. Artifact: Build cross functional teams
172. Value: “We work together to achieve a shared goal”
173. Artifact: Give autonomy. Eliminate signoff. Grant access. Log everything.
174. Value: “Ask forgiveness, not permission”
175. Artifact: Run post incident reviews Run pre incident reviews
176. Value: “Failure is an opportunity for learning”
177. Grow our people
178. Paint a new future (with the values you want)
179. Build systems that reflect the values we want
180. Deepen people, weather the org
181. I’m Lindsay
182. Thank you! ❤ the talk? Let @auxesis know.
183. Bibliography Edgar Schein → Organisational Culture & Leadership → Humble Inquiry L. David Marquet → Turn The Ship Around Patrick Lencioni → Silos, Politics, and Turf Wars → 5 Dysfunctions of a Team Adam Grant → Originals Christina Maslach → Banishing Burnout
184. Image sources (under various licenses) https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Ay-AnJThiLk/maxresdefault.jpg https://www.flickr.com/photos/auxesis/23141305085 https://www.flickr.com/photos/mwichary/2356663850 https://www.flickr.com/photos/dan4th/5449103171 https://www.flickr.com/photos/64958688@N00/3945181992 http://logonoid.com/images/enron-logo.png https://i.imgur.com/JrExX7K.gif https://media.giphy.com/media/aZ3LDBs1ExsE8/giphy.gif https://www.flickr.com/photos/imagesbywestfall/5542755557 http://doug-stern.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/deming.jpg http://i.imgur.com/E9ZJc0H.gif