SONYA GREEN - CALIBRATE Paying Down Cultural Debt What’s culture anyway? Like cheese? 

⛺ ⚠ SONYA GREEN - CALIBRATE 

Culture SONYA GREEN - CALIBRATE 

Culture SONYA GREEN - CALIBRATE culture the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively. 1400-50; late Middle English: tilling, place tilled (< Anglo-French) < Latin cultūra. See cult, -ure 

SONYA GREEN - CALIBRATE quality over speed speed over quality dogs ping pong craft beer collaborators over rock stars strong opinions, held weakly hacking all night 

SONYA GREEN - CALIBRATE dogs ping pong craft beer DJing hacking all night winter party employee leaves when a project fails birthdays milestones 

SONYA GREEN - CALIBRATE Values, with tradeoffs, written, shared. quality over speed speed over quality collaborators over rock stars strong opinions, held weakly 

SONYA GREEN - CALIBRATE “I had it defined in my head, but I didn’t write it down. If it’s not written down, it doesn’t exist.” - Jon Crawford, “Building a Dysfunctional Team” 

SONYA GREEN - CALIBRATE quality over speed speed over quality collaborators over rock stars strong opinions, held weakly 

Action Continuously Learn & Improve By Doing We value decision and learning over perfection • Iterative, experimentally-focused release process • Validated learnings are units of progress. • Project X: Built it in two weeks as a separate application in case we needed to throw it away, so that we could get it in front of customers and learn how they use it. 

Our Mindset Work Independently Collaborate Initiate Change Follow Processes Analyze Execute Focus Broadly Specialize 

SONYA GREEN - CALIBRATE Cultural Debt SONYA GREEN - CALIBRATE 

SONYA GREEN - CALIBRATE Defining cultural debt Cultural Debt SONYA GREEN - CALIBRATE SONYA GREEN - CALIBRATE cultural debt accruing cultural manifestations that are unwanted or inconsistent with desired values 21st century; second dotcom wave: See cult, kool-aid 

SONYA GREEN - CALIBRATE Slideshow of cultural debt “Culture by slogan!” Cultural obfuscation Values conflict with the reality don’t be evil; 20% time; move fast, break things; work on what you want to* “The wifi password is, all one word, smokemeakipperandIllseeyouinthemorning.” Work life balance … nap room, three meals provided, laundry on-site 

SONYA GREEN - CALIBRATE Debt is implicit cultural assessments (beer test) Debt is not considering diversity until later, once you’ve really gotten your feet under you Debt is the first paragraph of a job rec describing a homogeny you don’t actually need A note about hiring 

SONYA GREEN - CALIBRATE “Work on what you want to!” 

SONYA GREEN - CALIBRATE “Work on what you want to!” “Work on the intersection of what you want, what’s important, and what others need.” 

SONYA GREEN - CALIBRATE Calibration! * introspection - I like, I wish * reiterate values explicitly * take it upstream Paying down the debt 

SONYA GREEN - CALIBRATE • Jon Crawford’s Failcon talk: “Building a Dysfunctional Team” (2014) — video online • Alon Salant’s blog post: “What Are Your Hiring Criteria?” (2014) — Good Eggs blog • Gail Swanson’s Balanced Team conference talk: “Balanced Partnerships” (2015) — video online Primary sources 

SONYA GREEN - CALIBRATE The end! @sundaykofax