The Other Side of Empathy - JSConf EU 2015

In an industry that is so focused frameworks & tooling, we tend to lose sight of the people behind the products and how we work with them. I’ve found empathy to be a powerful resource while collaborating with teams inside companies and across the open source community. By breaking down The Other Side of Empathy, I will demonstrate how applying its principles to your development process will benefit the community and the products they create.

Transcript

1. The Other Side of Empathy
   

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3. Who Am I?
   

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4. Who Am I?
   Nick Hehr
   Empathetic Community Member
   Front-End Developer
   Disney Fan
   Bouldering Enthusiast
   

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6. Why Do I Care?
   

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7. Why Do I Care?
   Psychology & Leadership Degree
   Constant Collaboration w/ Designers & Devs
   I Community
   

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9. Who Should Care?
   

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10. Everybody
    

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12. What Is Empathy?
    

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13. What Is Empathy?
    The ability to understand and share the feelings of another.
    

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14. What Is Empathy?
    Seeing the world through the eyes of someone else.

    

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15. Where Did
    The Other Side of Empathy
    Come From?
    

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16. Where Did It Come From?
    Using Twitter
    Snap Judgements
    Mob Mentality
    

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17. Breakdown
    

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18. Breakdown
    Context
    Constructive Feedback
    Communication
    Caring
    

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19. Context
    

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20. The internal and external factors that influence
    the decisions we make and actions we take.
    

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21. How It Relates
    No One is Un-Opinionated
    We All Have Biases
    Listening is Key
    “Why?”
    

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23. Set The Example
    

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24. Example
    User Stories with Gherkin
    

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25. It captures the ‘who’, ‘what’, and ‘why’ of a
    requirement in a simple, concise way.
    

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26. Remembering Context
    Take A Deep Breath
    Clear Your Mind
    Ask “Why?” (sincerely)
    Listen
    

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27. Constructive Feedback
    

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28. “The return of information that helps to
    develop or improve.”
    

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29. How It Relates
    “If you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t
    say anything at all.”
    

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31. How It Relates
    “If you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t
    say anything at all.”
    

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32. How It Relates
    “If you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t
    say anything at all.”
    

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33. How It Relates
    “If you don’t have anything constructive to say,
    then don’t say anything at all.”
    

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34. What about negative feedback?
    

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36. Good Feedback > 140 characters
    

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38. Mutually Agreed Upon
    Set Up With Expectations
    In An Open Space
    Shared With Context
    Constructive Feedback is…
    

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39. Example
    Code Reviews
    

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40. It is intended to find and fix mistakes
    overlooked, improving both the overall quality
    of software and developers' skills.
    

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41. Encouraging
    Constructive Feedback
    

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43. https://github.com/atom/atom/blob/master/
    CONTRIBUTING.md
    

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44. https://github.com/hoodiehq/hoodie/blob/master/
    CONTRIBUTING.md
    

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45. Communication
    

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46. The successful sharing of
    ideas and feelings between people.
    

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47. Communication is a broad area
    that encompasses how we interact
    with each other.
    

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48. How It Relates
    What We Say
    How We Say It
    Where We Say It
    

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49. “I” Statements
    For Giving Constructive Feedback
    For Getting Context
    

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50. “You” Statements
    For Getting Context
    For Giving Constructive Feedback
    

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51. Example
    Switching Platforms
    

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52. How We Communicate
    General = Slack
    Standups = Hangouts / In-Person
    Recorded Discussions = GitHub Issues
    Long-Form / Async = Email
    

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53. Creating
    Communication
    

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57. https://.slack.com/
    customize/slackbot
    

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58. Caring
    

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59. To provide the needs of something
    and show interest in it.
    

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60. How It Relates
    Caring is Sharing
    And Listening
    And Understanding
    

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61. How Much Do You Care?
    

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62. Do You Care Enough…
    To Write A Blog Post?
    To File An Issue?
    To Send An Email?
    To Record A Screencast?
    To Submit A Pull Request?
    

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63. – Yoda
    “Don’t give in to hate. It leads to the Dark Side.”
    

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64. Example
    Documentation
    

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65. Documentation Matters
    Wikis
    Code Comments
    Styleguides
    Pattern Libraries
    README.md
    

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66. Exemplifying Caring
    

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67. Mentoring Matters
    Remember Starting Out?
    Did You Have A Mentor?
    Did You Want A Mentor?
    Do You Want To Learn?
    

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68. Contributing
    • Just Listen For A Day
    • Apply The Examples
    • Start Off Small
    • Remain Open to Sharing
    

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69. “It still sounds like too much work.”
    

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71. Resources
    hipsterbrown.com/empathy
    

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72. Thank You
    

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