$30 off During Our Annual Pro Sale. View Details »

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

pwnela
March 26, 2015

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

Slides presented at Ancient City Ruby 2015 http://www.ancientcityruby.com

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

pwnela

March 26, 2015
Tweet

More Decks by pwnela

Other Decks in Technology

Transcript

  1. Your Company Culture
    is “Awesome”
    (But is company culture a lie?)
    Ancient City Ruby, 2015
    Pamela O. Vickers, @pwnela

    View Slide

  2. “Company Culture”

    View Slide

  3. “Company Culture”

    View Slide

  4. View Slide

  5. View Slide

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

    View Slide

  7. Acme Co. #2
    “unique”

    View Slide

  8. View Slide

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

    View Slide

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

    View Slide

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

    View Slide

  12. Acme Co. #4
    “ping pong”

    View Slide

  13. Which reminds me...

    View Slide

  14. View Slide

  15. Acme Co. #5
    “wtf”

    View Slide

  16. View Slide

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

    View Slide

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

    View Slide

  19. View Slide

  20. Acme Co. #8
    “happy developers”

    View Slide

  21. View Slide

  22. “great"

    View Slide

  23. “awesome"

    View Slide

  24. “best in town"

    View Slide

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

    View Slide

  26. PERMA
    Martin Seligman

    View Slide

  27. P
    positive emotion

    View Slide

  28. E
    engagement

    View Slide

  29. R
    relationships

    View Slide

  30. M
    meaning

    View Slide

  31. A
    achievement

    View Slide

  32. View Slide

  33. View Slide

  34. P
    positive emotion

    View Slide

  35. P
    positive emotion

    View Slide

  36. View Slide

  37. View Slide

  38. View Slide

  39. View Slide

  40. View Slide

  41. View Slide

  42. View Slide

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

    View Slide

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

    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. View Slide

  54. View Slide

  55. View Slide

  56. View Slide

  57. View Slide

  58. View Slide

  59. “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

  60. P == ERMA

    View Slide

  61. View Slide

  62. View Slide

  63. View Slide

  64. E
    engagement

    View Slide

  65. M
    meaning

    View Slide

  66. A
    achievement

    View Slide

  67. E
    engagement

    View Slide

  68. View Slide

  69. View Slide

  70. View Slide

  71. View Slide

  72. View Slide

  73. View Slide

  74. M
    meaning

    View Slide

  75. M
    meaning

    View Slide

  76. M
    meaning

    View Slide

  77. View Slide

  78. A
    achievement

    View Slide

  79. A
    achievement

    View Slide

  80. View Slide

  81. “but”

    View Slide

  82. bad communication
    kills engagement

    View Slide

  83. bad/unavailable tools
    kills engagement

    View Slide

  84. impossible deadlines
    kills engagement, prevents achievement

    View Slide

  85. boring domain
    no meaning, kills engagement

    View Slide

  86. ambiguous ethical domain
    no (good) meaning,

    View Slide

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

    View Slide

  88. View Slide

  89. View Slide

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

    View Slide

  91. learning new things…

    View Slide

  92. …battling against our
    own ignorance.

    View Slide

  93. If you write code, you
    will struggle.

    View Slide

  94. …without getting (too)
    frustrated.”
    Aaron Hillegass

    View Slide

  95. …without getting (too)
    frustrated.”
    Aaron Hillegass

    View Slide

  96. View Slide

  97. View Slide

  98. View Slide

  99. View Slide

  100. View Slide

  101. View Slide

  102. View Slide

  103. View Slide

  104. 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

  105. 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

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

    View Slide

  107. (more letter math)

    View Slide

  108. A - (E + M)== ❌ ==

    View Slide

  109. (E + M) > ☕

    View Slide

  110. “but"

    View Slide

  111. View Slide

  112. View Slide

  113. View Slide

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

    View Slide

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

    View Slide

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

    View Slide

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

    View Slide

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

    View Slide

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

    View Slide

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

    View Slide

  121. View Slide

  122. View Slide

  123. View Slide

  124. R
    relationships

    View Slide

  125. View Slide

  126. Things That Suck™

    View Slide

  127. Things That Suck™

    View Slide

  128. View Slide

  129. View Slide

  130. View Slide

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

    View Slide

  132. “fine”

    View Slide

  133. “but”

    View Slide

  134. “but”

    View Slide

  135. View Slide

  136. View Slide

  137. View Slide

  138. View Slide

  139. View Slide

  140. View Slide

  141. culture.pluralsight.com

    View Slide

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

    View Slide

  143. The Five Whys

    View Slide

  144. The Five Whys

    View Slide

  145. View Slide

  146. “The car won’t start.”

    View Slide

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

    View Slide

  148. “The battery is dead.”

    View Slide

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

    View Slide

  150. “The alternator isn’t
    working.”

    View Slide

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

    View Slide

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

    View Slide

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

    View Slide

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

    View Slide

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

    View Slide

  156. culture.pluralsight.com

    View Slide

  157. culture.pluralsight.com

    View Slide

  158. View Slide

  159. “but”

    View Slide

  160. “but”

    View Slide

  161. View Slide

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

    View Slide

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

    View Slide

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

    View Slide

  165. View Slide

  166. View Slide

  167. View Slide

  168. deliberate culture

    View Slide

  169. passive culture

    View Slide

  170. View Slide

  171. View Slide

  172. “awesome”

    View Slide

  173. Thank you,
    Ancient City Ruby!

    View Slide

  174. Pamela O. Vickers
    @pwnela

    View Slide

  175. View Slide