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

Transcript

1. Your Company Culture is “Awesome” (But is company culture a lie?) Ancient City Ruby, 2015 Pamela O. Vickers, @pwnela
2. “Company Culture”
3. “Company Culture”
6. Acme Co. #1 “useful, funny, cool”
7. Acme Co. #2 “unique”
9. Acme Co. #3 “best culture in town”
10. Acme Co. #3 (cont.) “Call of Duty”
11. The “best culture in town” sounds a lot like...
12. Acme Co. #4 “ping pong”
13. Which reminds me...
15. Acme Co. #5 “wtf”
17. Acme Co. #6 “extended hours, as needed”
18. Acme Co. #7 “code quality, testing, peer reviews, collaboration"
20. Acme Co. #8 “happy developers”
22. “great"
23. “awesome"
24. “best in town"
25. “The Most Important Optimization: Happiness” by Ernie Miller
26. PERMA Martin Seligman
27. P positive emotion
28. E engagement
29. R relationships
30. M meaning
31. A achievement
34. P positive emotion
35. P positive emotion
43. “How Perks Can Divide Us” by Melissa Santos & Rafe Colburn
44. “How Perks Can Divide Us” by Melissa Santos & Rafe Colburn
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
60. P == ERMA
64. E engagement
65. M meaning
66. A achievement
67. E engagement
74. M meaning
75. M meaning
76. M meaning
78. A achievement
79. A achievement
81. “but”
82. bad communication kills engagement
83. bad/unavailable tools kills engagement
84. impossible deadlines kills engagement, prevents achievement
85. boring domain no meaning, kills engagement
86. ambiguous ethical domain no (good) meaning,
87. “no one is going to use this” no meaning, no engagement, no achievement
90. “The life of a programmer is mostly a never-ending struggle.
91. learning new things…
92. …battling against our own ignorance.
93. If you write code, you will struggle.
94. …without getting (too) frustrated.” Aaron Hillegass
95. …without getting (too) frustrated.” Aaron Hillegass
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”
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”
106. E + M == A == (more) P
107. (more letter math)
108. A - (E + M)== ❌ ==
109. (E + M) > ☕
110. “but"
114. Does the product owner respond to questions and/or requests in a reasonable time frame?
115. Does the product owner respect the developing team members?
116. Does the product owner appreciate and value the work done by the developing team?
117. Does the product owner follow (within reason) the process outlined by the developing team?
118. Is the product owner pleasant to work with in general?
119. And do we, as the developers, have the resources needed to to move the project forward?
120. And do we, as the developers, have the resources needed to to move the project forward?
124. R relationships
126. Things That Suck™
127. Things That Suck™
131. (via http://notquittingmydayjob.com)
132. “fine”
133. “but”
134. “but”
141. culture.pluralsight.com
142. “…people are still going to hesitate to talk about the tough stuff.”” Keith Sparkjoy
143. The Five Whys
144. The Five Whys
146. “The car won’t start.”
147. “The car won’t start.” “Why?”
148. “The battery is dead.”
149. “The battery is dead.” “Why?”
150. “The alternator isn’t working.”
151. “The alternator isn’t working.” “Why?”
152. “The alternator belt wasn’t replaced.”
153. “The alternator belt wasn’t replaced.” “Why?”
154. “The car isn’t being maintained well.”
155. “The car isn’t being maintained well.” “Oh.”
156. culture.pluralsight.com
157. culture.pluralsight.com
159. “but”
160. “but”
162. Acme Co. #7 “code quality, testing, peer reviews, collaboration"
163. Acme Co. #7 “We look for people who are really smart, really nice and who want to solve big problems…”
164. Acme Co. #7 “We look for people who are really smart, really nice and who want to solve big problems…”
168. deliberate culture
169. passive culture
172. “awesome”
173. Thank you, Ancient City Ruby!
174. Pamela O. Vickers @pwnela