Engineering Culture by InfoQ

In this podcast recorded at QCon San Francisco 2016, Shane Hastie, InfoQ Lead Editor for Culture & Methods, spoke to Mitch Shepard founder of WiRL about her talk at QCon and the challenges around gender diversity in the tech workforce.

Why listen to this podcast:

- Gender diversity and women leaving tech roles is a real and serious problem

- There are compelling reasons to have a more diverse workplace – both ethical and bottom line results

- “It’s nobody’s fault, but it is everybody’s problem”

- There are physiological differences between the male and female brains

- Don’t assume anything about anyone because of who they are or any characteristic they may have – we are all different

Notes and links can be found on InfoQ: http://bit.ly/2jodKmn

4m:34s - “It’s nobody’s fault, but it is everybody’s problem”

4m:49s - There is strong, systematic bias which gives men an advantage which goes long and deep

5m:09s - Things driving the recognition of the issue at a personal level are often related to leaders who see the issue and are driven by an extreme sense of fairness, and seeing the women they care about impeded in their career growth

6m:14s - The business case for diversity is compelling – businesses who have a higher percentage of women leaders than the average consistently achieve better financial performance

Quick scan our curated show notes on InfoQ: http://bit.ly/2jodKmn

You can also subscribe to the InfoQ newsletter to receive weekly updates on the hottest topics from professional software development. bit.ly/2cMnjfW

This is the Engineering Culture Podcast, from the people behind InfoQ.com and the QCon conferences.

In this podcast Shane Hastie, InfoQ Lead Editor for Culture & Methods, spoke with Douglas Talbot, Head of Organisational Effectiveness for Ocado Technology, about the challenges and opportunities involved in creating a culture of innovation and agility in “a technology company that also does retail”.

Why listen to this podcast:

- Differences in the way IT is approached in different parts of the worldApplying ideas from agile, lean and Kanban to making business smarter by looking beyond process and practices to the people factors that make a difference to organisational outcomes

- Looking beyond the “latest consultancy model of choice” and taking an evidence-based approach to understand what really drives motivation and behavioural change in teams

- Leadership is a game of providing clarity of vision and allowing teams to be self-organising and empowered

- Cultural change is not really possible without commitment from the very topTop talent wants to work in places where there is a great culture, so culture becomes a competitive advantage

Notes and links can be found on InfoQ: http://bit.ly/2hQ5Kdg

8m:35s - Diverse backgrounds of the organisational effectiveness group

9m:05s - Engaging a behavioural economist and an organisational psychologist to ensure there is an understanding of the evidence around group dynamics and motivation

9m:25s - Looking beyond the “latest consultancy model of choice” and taking an evidence-based approach to understand what really drives motivation and behavioural change in teams

10m:10s - Examples of evidence found and changes made

Quick scan our curated show notes on InfoQ: http://bit.ly/2hQ5Kdg

You can also subscribe to the InfoQ newsletter to receive weekly updates on the hottest topics from professional software development. bit.ly/2cMnjfW

This is the Engineering Culture Podcast, from the people behind InfoQ.com and the QCon conferences.

In this podcast recorded at QCon San Francisco 2016, Shane Hastie, InfoQ Lead Editor for Culture & Methods, spoke to Amber Case, Cyborg Anthropologist.

Case explains why VR is an important step along the way to Augmented Reality, how technology needs to fit in with social norms, and why calm technology is so important.

Why listen to this podcast:

- We are all cyborgs now

- There is a clear sequence for a technology to be accepted in society, and trying to leapfrog the steps results in failure

- The value of calm technology to overcome the shock of so many devices competing for our attention in different ways

- The importance of security and safety in the always connected technology world

- The risks, downfalls and benefits of technology in human lives

Notes and links can be found on InfoQ: http://bit.ly/amber-case

1m:40s - Starting with VR to create new experiences and use them to learn about the potential of the new technologies

2m:00s - The importance of starting with a technology that fits in with the current social norms and expand slowly into new frontiers

2m:10s - The hype and excitement around AR made us forget the normal order – get VR working well first then move on to AR

2m:55s - The value of games as a way to socialise the new technologies

Quick scan our curated show notes on InfoQ: http://bit.ly/amber-case

You can also subscribe to the InfoQ newsletter to receive weekly updates on the hottest topics from professional software development. bit.ly/2cMnjfW

This is the Engineering Culture Podcast, from the people behind InfoQ.com and the QCon conferences.

In this podcast, recorded at Agile 2016, Shane Hastie, InfoQ Lead Editor for Culture & Methods, spoke to Michael de la Maza and David Benz about their minibook Why Agile Works, which is available at InfoQ.com.

Why listen to this podcast:

- In a startup you have to use an Agile approach – it just makes sense

- It’s easy to teach practices, but with a foundation in the core values of agile then practice drive adoption of agile can be hell

- There has been a recent resurgence in the recognition of the importance of the values

- This can be a way to explain agile approaches to executives

- Cutting through dysfunction requires addressing culture and assumptions

Notes and links can be found on InfoQ: http://bit.ly/why-agile-works

7m:30s - The book has lots of dimensions and plenty of examples of why values matter, and how they make a difference

7m:50s - The audience includes managers who want to adopt a value-driven approach

8m:05s - It is for people who want to deepen their level of consciousness about the agile values, not just add another practice to their toolkit

8m:35s - This is a book to help explain agile approaches to executives

9m:20s - Key message: integrity and consistency.

9m:45s - The impact of practices which are at odds with corporate values

Quick scan our curated show notes on InfoQ: http://bit.ly/why-agile-works

You can also subscribe to the InfoQ newsletter to receive weekly updates on the hottest topics from professional software development. bit.ly/2cMnjfW

This is the Engineering Culture Podcast, from the people behind InfoQ.com and the QCon conferences.

In this podcast recorded at the Agile 2016 conference, Shane Hastie, InfoQ Lead Editor for Culture & Methods, talks to five of the leading minds of Agile Management: Steve Denning, Ray Arell, Todd Little, Hendrik Esser and Steve Holyer.

They explore the question “Is agile still agile?”, look at the challenges around agile development and product management, and what is needed for large scale agile transformation.

Why listen to this podcast:

- Agile is a mindset, not a set of processes or practices

- The risks and dangers of packaged implementation of “agile” using process checkboxes without understanding why

- Agile adoption is hard – simple but not easy

- When agile practices are adopted for the wrong reasons it causes stress levels to go up and drives unsustainable behavioursIt’s not “twice the work in half the time”; it should be about twice the value with half the work

- The Scrum role of Product Owner is broken

- Product management is the hardest part of product development, irrespective of the development approachIn a complex world your only chance for survival is learning

Notes and links can be found on InfoQ: http://bit.ly/2g2hWuR

4m:15s - Some teams can benefit from checkbox, packaged implementations of agility as a starting point but they must be able to evolve.

4m:30s - Agility is a journey – you need to be agile in mindset, based around continuous improvement.

4m:40s - The most agile teams are the ones who continually inspect and adapt their practices to work most effectively for their context.

5m:00s - Checkbox teams who follow every one of the practices without knowing why are unable to improve and are not effective.

5m:15s - It’s about understanding and getting to the heart of why – for your process and for your product.

5m:30s - The checkbox process is easy for companies to measure and doing so drives bad behaviour.

Quick scan our curated show notes on InfoQ: http://bit.ly/2g2hWuR

You can also subscribe to the InfoQ newsletter to receive weekly updates on the hottest topics from professional software development. bit.ly/2cMnjfW

This is the Engineering Culture Podcast, from the people behind InfoQ.com and the QCon conferences.

In this podcast, Shane Hastie, InfoQ Lead Editor for Culture & Methods, talks to Melissa Perri, a UX and Product Management expert and founder of Produx Labs.

Why listen to this podcast:

- Put value first – it’s not about building more stuff but making sure we build the right thing for the right people

- Product ownership is about optimising value for the organisation

- Managers need to understand their role in product management

- Identify outcomes and define pirate metrics for success

- Empower teams to achieve the outcomes, not deliver features

Notes and links can be found on InfoQ: http://bit.ly/melissa-perri

3m:45s Management should communicate the metrics and goals to the product owner and let them work with the delivery team(s) to figure out how to achieve them

4m:20s Product owners told to make decisions but not actually empowered to do so

4m:35s Focus on training the managers on what they need to do to effectively support product ownership and how to communicate clear boundaries and goals

5m:20s A product strategy is not a plan

5m:55s Common approach is for managers to define the features and roadmap instead of identifying and communicating the goals, and trust the teams to figure out the best way to achieve the goals

Quick scan our curated show notes on InfoQ: http://bit.ly/melissa-perri

You can also subscribe to the InfoQ newsletter to receive weekly updates on the hottest topics from professional software development. http://bit.ly/2cMnjfW

This is the Engineering Culture Podcast, from the people behind InfoQ.com and the QCon conferences.

In this podcast, Shane Hastie, InfoQ Lead Editor for Culture & Methods, talks to David Hussman, founder and “The Dude” from DevJam and CardBoard It!, a tool for story mapping.

Why listen to this podcast:

- Put value first – it’s not about building more stuff but making sure we build the right thing for the right people

- Dude’s Law: Value = Why / How

- Identify the impact that a product needs to make on someone’s life

- Constrain complexity using thin slicing and “minimum viable learning”

- Have an intentional discovery-delivery cadence to speed up the learning cycles – design and delivery sprints tightly coupled

- “Done” is not enough – value is only delivered when the item has been validated with real customers

- Validation can happen in both discovery and delivery

Notes and links can be found on InfoQ: http://bit.ly/2eegjYf

- 1m 41s Introducing “Dude’s Law”: Value = Why divided by How.

- 3m 05s Think about the intent, not the process, when looking at product development.

- 3m 17s Focus on Product over Process and finding the intent, identifying the impact that the product will have.

- 3m 30s Large “transformations” are often never-ending and not very successful; successful products come from finding the thing that impacts someone – that makes someone’s life better.

More on this:

Quick scan our curated show notes on InfoQ. http://bit.ly/2eegjYf

You can also subscribe to the InfoQ newsletter to receive weekly updates on the hottest topics from professional software development. http://bit.ly/2cMnjfW

This is the Engineering Culture Podcast, from the people behind InfoQ.com and the QCon conferences.

In this podcast, Shane Hastie, InfoQ Lead Editor for Culture & Methods, talks to Phil Brock, Rebecca Parsons, Paul Hammond and Victor Hugo about the state of the Agile Alliance, new initiatives being worked on around the world and the future of agility in the workplace.

Why listen to this podcast:

- The Agile 2016 conference was the largest ever with nearly 2500 people attending

- The Agile Alliance is spreading around the world with events and through affiliates

- The Agile Alliance has responded to the criticism about the main conference having less technical content and ran a Technical Conference in 2016 with another scheduled for 2017, as well as having technically focused initiatives which are exploring new technical practices in response to the changing technical landscape

- Member driven initiatives are receiving more focus and more funding to engage the agile community

The Agile Alliance website has a large repository of content which is freely available to the global agile community, and more is constantly being produced

Notes and links can be found on InfoQ: http://bit.ly/2dDB01f

- 4m 55s The Agile Alliance is spreading into parts of the world beyond North America with affiliates and with events in different countries.

- 5m 05s Victor talks about the Agile Europe and Agile Brazil conferences.

- 6m 09s The value of having an Affiliate in Brazil is about providing a structure and support for the large Agile Brazil conference as well as providing a vehicle to support the growth of a healthy agile community in Brazil

- 7m 25s There are a variety of Initiatives which the Alliance supports. These are ways for the community to get involved and to propose ideas for areas they want to see the Alliance working in. There are three types of initiatives the Alliance supports

More on this:

Quick scan our curated show notes on InfoQ. http://bit.ly/2dDB01f

You can also subscribe to the InfoQ newsletter to receive weekly updates on the hottest topics from professional software development. http://bit.ly/2cMnjfW

This is the Engineering Culture Podcast, from the people behind InfoQ.com and the QCon conferences.

In this podcast, Shane Hastie, InfoQ Lead Editor for Culture & Methods, talks to Kent McDonald, Steve Adolph and Ryland Leyton about the state of business analysis and product management in agile product development. They were participants in a weekend workshop where the Agile Alliance and the International Institute of Business Analysis were collaborating to produce a revised version of the Agile Extension to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge.

Why listen to this podcast:

- Analysis skills are necessary for successful product development

- We don’t question and challenge the rationale and strategic alignment of projects enough, which results in lots of waste from doing the wrong projects or building the wrong features in a project

- The best return on investment that you can get is to stop wasting your money

- Value is hard to define but crucial to identify; the definition of value will be different in every context

- Agile methods provide for learning and rapid feedback, which enables us to optimize value and ensure strategic alignment in product development

- User stories are conversation placeholders, not orders to be fulfilled

Notes and links can be found on InfoQ: bit.ly/2e32o5X

- 6m 20s Analysis skills reside in many different roles and doing analysis in agile development is far less prescriptive that has been the case.

- 6m 44s You need to have a very comprehensive toolkit and have the ability to relate the tool needed to the context of the work being done.

- 9m 13s Advanced organisations are changing when they utilise analysis skills to determine which initiatives should be worked on and how they align with organisation strategy; being able to review these decisions even after an initiative has started, stopping development work when it is no longer valuable.

More on this:

Quick scan our curated show notes on InfoQ. bit.ly/2e32o5X

You can also subscribe to the InfoQ newsletter to receive weekly updates on the hottest topics from professional software development. bit.ly/2cMnjfW

This is the first in a new series of podcasts from the people behind InfoQ.com and the QCon conferences - the Engineering Culture Podcast.

In this podcast, Wes Reisz, chair of the QCon conferences in San Francisco, London and New York talks to Phil Haack, an Engineering Director at GitHub focused on software pushed mostly to the desktop. He’s shipping software like GitHub Desktop, GitHub Extensions for Visual Studio and the Atom text editor. Haack joined GitHub in 2011 and is a prominent member of the .Net community. At Microsoft Phil was core to shipping NewGit and ASP.NET, MVC.NET.

Why listen to this podcast:

- There is often too much focus on the nitty-gritty details of software development practices but as you scale out to larger projects and teams the challenges are not technological- they are sociological.

- Research shows that teams which are more diverse are more effective.

- Engineers shifting to management should consider it a discipline like any other technical field; it’s not something that you should “just wing”.

- Building an effective team requires trust and that allows candid discussions and healthy debates without disrupting the relationships. One-on-ones can be an effective way to do that.

- To be an effective coach for engineers, a manager needs to be seen as a strong technical leader. Someone without technical credibility is generally not received well.

Notes and links can be found on InfoQ: https://bit.ly/2L7Irg3

5m 10s The big problems we have are sociological, and frequently companies and engineers don’t pay enough attention to these problems because they try to focus on the technical practices instead; but the root cause is how people interact with each other and how they are working together.

5m 40s The talk covers some personal lessons learned and the research that backs those personal lessons. There is validated research that shows certain things make for more effective teams.

More on this: Quick scan our curated show notes on InfoQ https://bit.ly/2L7Irg3

You can also subscribe to the InfoQ newsletter to receive weekly updates on the hottest topics from professional software development. bit.ly/24x3IVq

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Here is Phil Haack's talk on Social Coding for Effective Teams and Products recorded at QCon San Francisco 2016: https://bit.ly/2QPEU9D