Developer Culture that Doesn't Suck

You don't need a system to maintain consistent culture when every engineer on your team looks and talks like you. As you diversify your hiring, and take in the flood of juniors from developer academies, you'll need to apply consideration and process to growing your team culture sustainably.

This session will show you tools and structures to help your teammates better understand their colleagues, their code, and themselves. You'll learn why common sense doesn't exist and why the best tool for the job is rarely that. By the end, you'll know how to create developer culture that doesn't suck.

Transcript

1. DEVELOPER CULTURE THAT DOESN'T SUCK -- @lachlanhardy
2. Healthy team culture is difficult and it is getting harder. It requires active attention and planning.
3. HEALTHY TEAMS
4. WORK TOGETHER TOWARDS SHARED GOALS
5. HAVE DIVERSE BACKGROUNDS AND PERSPECTIVES
6. COMMUNICATE EFFECTIVELY
7. PRACTICE MUTUAL RESPECT
8. TRUST ONE ANOTHER
9. HEALTHY CULTURE KEEPS GETTING HARDER
10. THE RISE OF JUNIOR DEVS
11. DELIBERATE DIVERSIFICATION OF TEAMS
12. COMMON SENSE REQUIRES COMMONALITY
13. RITUALS
14. FEEDBACK ▸ Ask first ▸ Offer it gently ▸ Ask, don't tell ▸ Make it relevant
15. CODE PREVIEWS ▸ Improves confidence ▸ Reduces re-writes ▸ Shares information
16. CODE REVIEWS ▸ Ask questions ▸ Offer suggestions ▸ Talk about the code, not the author
17. PAIRING ▸ Write code together ▸ Write project stories together ▸ At least weekly
18. IT'S THE TOGETHER BIT THAT COUNTS
19. REGULAR PRACTICE MEETINGS TEAM AGENDA, TEAM SESSION
20. TEAM WORKING AGREEMENTS ▸ Roles and responsibilities ▸ Timings ▸ Methodologies
21. HAVE FUN SOCIAL RITUALS ARE IMPORTANT TOO
22. ACTSASDISTRIBUTED
23. ASYNCHRONOUS COMMUNICATION CHANNELS ▸ Stop expecting immediate responses ▸ Public, by default ▸ Permanent, by default
24. POLICY BY PULL REQUEST ▸ discussions are public ▸ decisions are transparent ▸ everyone is encouraged to contribute
25. REGULAR RETROSPECTIVES ▸ Concentrate on problems and solutions rather than people ▸ Address issues early ▸ Keep conversations transparent
26. I WRITE ALL THE THINGS I DID WRONG SO SOMEONE ELSE DOESN'T HAVE TO
27. DOCUMENTATION ▸ Everybody writes their own documentation ▸ Leave every project better than you found it
28. INTERNAL BLOGGING ▸ Today I Learned ▸ Case studies ▸ Weekly project reports ▸ One weird trick...
29. REMOTE PAIRING ▸ tmux/tmate ▸ screenhero
30. SUMMARY
31. KEY POINTS ▸ Over-communicate, in public ▸ Create rituals that encourage communication and sharing ▸ When they don't work, keep iterating
32. THANK YOU -- @lachlanhardy