Your Company Culture is "Awesome" (But is company culture a lie?)

Slides presented at Rocky Mountain Ruby 2014 http://rockymtnruby.com

*IMPORTANT* album of animated gifs found here http://imgur.com/a/NoYVE

Transcript

1. Your Company Culture
   is “Awesome”
   (But is company culture a lie?)
   Rocky Mountain Ruby 2014
   Pamela O. Vickers, @pwnela
   

   View Slide

2. “Company Culture”
   

   View Slide

3. “Company Culture”
   

   View Slide

4. View Slide

5. Acme Co. #1
   “useful, funny, cool”
   

   View Slide

6. Acme Co. #2
   “unique”
   

   View Slide

7. View Slide

8. Acme Co. #3
   “best culture in town”
   

   View Slide

9. Acme Co. #3 (cont.)
   “Call of Duty”
   

   View Slide

10. The “best culture in town”
    sounds a lot like...
    

    View Slide

11. Acme Co. #4
    “ping pong”
    

    View Slide

12. Which reminds me...
    

    View Slide

13. View Slide

14. Acme Co. #5
    “wtf”
    

    View Slide

15. View Slide

16. Acme Co. #6
    “extended hours, as needed”
    

    View Slide

17. Acme Co. #7
    “code quality, testing, peer reviews, collaboration"
    

    View Slide

18. View Slide

19. Acme Co. #8
    “happy developers”
    

    View Slide

20. View Slide

21. “great"
    

    View Slide

22. “awesome"
    

    View Slide

23. “best in town"
    

    View Slide

24. “The Most Important
    Optimization: Happiness”
    by Ernie Miller
    

    View Slide

25. PERMA
    Martin Seligman
    

    View Slide

26. P
    positive emotion
    

    View Slide

27. E
    engagement
    

    View Slide

28. R
    relationships
    

    View Slide

29. M
    meaning
    

    View Slide

30. A
    achievement
    

    View Slide

31. View Slide

32. P
    positive emotion
    

    View Slide

33. View Slide

34. View Slide

35. View Slide

36. View Slide

37. View Slide

38. View Slide

39. View Slide

40. “How Perks Can
    Divide Us”
    by Melissa Santos & Rafe Colburn
    

    View Slide

41. View Slide

42. View Slide

43. View Slide

44. View Slide

45. View Slide

46. View Slide

47. View Slide

48. View Slide

49. View Slide

50. View Slide

51. View Slide

52. View Slide

53. “You never change things by fighting
    the existing reality. To change
    something, build a new model that
    makes the existing model obsolete.”
    R. Buckminster Fuller
    

    View Slide

54. P == ERMA
    

    View Slide

55. View Slide

56. View Slide

57. View Slide

58. E
    engagement
    

    View Slide

59. M
    meaning
    

    View Slide

60. A
    achievement
    

    View Slide

61. E
    engagement
    

    View Slide

62. View Slide

63. View Slide

64. View Slide

65. View Slide

66. View Slide

67. View Slide

68. M
    meaning
    

    View Slide

69. View Slide

70. A
    achievement
    

    View Slide

71. View Slide

72. “but”
    

    View Slide

73. bad communication
    kills engagement
    

    View Slide

74. bad/unavailable tools
    kills engagement
    

    View Slide

75. impossible deadlines
    kills engagement, prevents achievement
    

    View Slide

76. boring domain
    no meaning, kills engagement
    

    View Slide

77. ambiguous ethical domain
    no (good) meaning,
    

    View Slide

78. “no one is going to use this”
    no meaning, no engagement, no achievement
    

    View Slide

79. View Slide

80. View Slide

81. “The life of a programmer
    is mostly a never-ending
    struggle.”
    

    View Slide

82. “learning new things…”
    

    View Slide

83. “…battling against our
    own ignorance.”
    

    View Slide

84. “If you write code, you
    will struggle.”
    

    View Slide

85. “…without getting
    (too) frustrated.”
    Aaron Hillegass
    

    View Slide

86. View Slide

87. View Slide

88. View Slide

89. View Slide

90. View Slide

91. View Slide

92. View Slide

93. View Slide

94. View Slide

95. Engagement Meaning Achievement
    challenging
    challenging
    interesting
    “Has a degree of
    complexity”
    “Is autonomous”
    inspirational
    innovative
    innovative
    practical
    community-building
    beneficial
    epic
    important
    finite
    finite
    short
    successful
    “clear relationship
    between work and
    reward”
    

    View Slide

96. E + M == A == (more)
    P
    

    View Slide

97. (more letter math)
    

    View Slide

98. A - (E + M)== ❌ == "
    

    View Slide

99. (E + M) > ☕
    

    View Slide

100. “but"
     

     View Slide

101. View Slide

102. View Slide

103. Does the product owner respond
     to questions and/or requests in a
     reasonable time frame?
     

     View Slide

104. Does the product owner
     respect the developing
     team members?
     

     View Slide

105. Does the product owner
     appreciate and value the work
     done by the developing team?
     

     View Slide

106. Does the product owner follow
     (within reason) the process
     outlined by the developing team?
     

     View Slide

107. Is the product owner
     pleasant to work with in
     general?
     

     View Slide

108. And do we, as the developers,
     have the resources needed to
     move the project forward?
     

     View Slide

109. And do we, as the developers,
     have the resources needed to
     move the project forward?
     

     View Slide

110. View Slide

111. View Slide

112. R
     relationships
     

     View Slide

113. View Slide

114. Things That Suck™
     

     View Slide

115. View Slide

116. View Slide

117. (via http://notquittingmydayjob.com)
     

     View Slide

118. “fine”
     

     View Slide

119. “but”
     

     View Slide

120. View Slide

121. View Slide

122. View Slide

123. View Slide

124. View Slide

125. View Slide

126. culture.pluralsight.com
     

     View Slide

127. “…people are still going
     to hesitate to talk about
     the tough stuff.””
     Keith Sparkjoy
     

     View Slide

128. The Five Whys
     

     View Slide

129. View Slide

130. “The car won’t start.”
     

     View Slide

131. “The car won’t start.”
     “Why?”
     

     View Slide

132. “The battery is dead.”
     

     View Slide

133. “The battery is dead.”
     “Why?”
     

     View Slide

134. “The alternator isn’t
     working.”
     

     View Slide

135. “The alternator isn’t
     working.”
     “Why?”
     

     View Slide

136. “The alternator belt
     wasn’t replaced.”
     

     View Slide

137. “The alternator belt
     wasn’t replaced.”
     “Why?”
     

     View Slide

138. “The car isn’t being
     maintained well.”
     

     View Slide

139. “The car isn’t being
     maintained well.”
     “Oh.”
     

     View Slide

140. culture.pluralsight.com
     

     View Slide

141. View Slide

142. “but”
     

     View Slide

143. View Slide

144. Acme Co. #7
     “code quality, testing, peer reviews, collaboration"
     

     View Slide

145. Acme Co. #7
     “We look for people who are really smart, really nice and
     who want to solve big problems…”
     

     View Slide

146. View Slide

147. View Slide

148. View Slide

149. $boom$
     

     View Slide

150. View Slide

151. $boom$
     

     View Slide

152. View Slide

153. You get the idea.
     

     View Slide

154. %%%
     

     View Slide

155. &deliberate culture&
     

     View Slide

156. 'passive culture'
     

     View Slide

157. View Slide

158. View Slide

159. “awesome”
     

     View Slide

160. Thank you.
     

     View Slide

161. Pamela O. Vickers
     @pwnela
     

     View Slide

162. View Slide